
























Through the Postern 
Gate 

Ji Romance of Seven Days 


By 

Florence L. Barclay 



Jiuthor of ** The Rosary , " “ The Mistress 
of Shenstone, ” etc. 


G. P. Putnam’s Sons 
New York and London 
Zbc ’KnicKerbocKet preea 



•1 



THE FIRST DAY 


THE STORY OF LITTLE BOY BLUE 

UT it was not your niece! It 
was always you I wanted/' 
said the Boy. 

He lay back, in a deep 
wicker chair, under the old mulberry tree. 
He had taken the precaution of depositing 
his cup and saucer on the soft turf beneath 
his chair, because he knew that, under the 
stress of sudden emotion, china — especially 
the best china — had a way of flying off his 
knee. And there was no question as to 
the exquisite quality of the china on the 
dainty tea-table over which Miss Christobel 
Charteris presided. 

The Boy had watched her pouring the 
tea into those pretty rose-leaf cups, nearly 
every afternoon during the golden two 




4 Under the Mulberry Tree 


weeks just over. He knew every movement 
of those firm white hands, so soft, yet so 
strong and capable. 

The Boy used to stand beside her, ready 
to hand Mollie’s cup, as punctiliously 
as if a dozen girls had been sitting in the 
old garden, waiting to be quickly served 
by the only man. 

The Boy enjoyed being the only man. 
Also he had quite charming manners. 
He never allowed the passing of bread- 
and-butter to interfere with the flow of 
conversation; yet the bread-and-butter was 
always within reach at the precise moment 
you wanted it, though the Boy’s bright 
eyes were fixed just then in keenest interest 
on the person who happened to be speaking, 
and not a point of the story, or a word of 
the remark, was missed either by him or 
by you. 

He used to watch the Aunt’s beautiful 
hands, very closely; and at last, every time 
he looked at them, his brown eyes kissed 
them. The Boy thought this was a de- 


The First Day 


5 


lightful secret known only to himself. 
But one day, when he was bending over 
her, holding his own cup while she filled 
it, the Aunt suddenly said: “Don’t!"’ It 
was so startling and unexpected, that the 
cup almost flew out of his hand. The 
Boy might have said: “Don’t whatV 
which would have put the Aunt in a 
difficulty, because it would have been so 
very impossible to explain. But he was 
too honest. He at once did n't, and felt 
a little shy for five minutes ; then recovered, 
and hugged himself with a fearful joy 
at the thought that she had known his 
eyes had kissed her dear beautiful hands; 
then stole a look at her calm face, so com- 
pletely unmoved in its classic beauty, and 
thought he must have been mistaken ; 
only — what on earth else could she have 
said “Don’t!’’ about, at that moment? 

But Mollie was there, then; so no ex- 
planations were possible. Now at last, 
thank goodness, Mollie had gone, and his 
own seven days had begun. This was the 


6 Under the Mulberry Tree 


first day; and he was going to tell her 
everything. There was absolutely nothing 
he would not be able to tell her. The 
delight of this fairly swept the Boy off his 
feet. He had kept on the curb so long; 
and he was not used to curbs of any 
kind. 

He lay back, his hands behind his head, 
and watched the Aunt's kind face, through 
half-closed lids. His brown eyes were 
shining, but very soft. When the Aunt 
looked at them, she quickly looked away. 

‘‘How could you think the attraction 
would be gone?" he said. ‘‘It was always 
you, I wanted, not your niece. Good 
heavens! How can you have thought it 
was Mollie, when it was you — you, just 
only you, all the time?" 

The Aunt raised her beautiful eyebrows 
and looked him straight in the face. 

“Is this a proposal?" she asked, quietly. 

“Of course it is," said the Boy; “and 
jolly hard it has been, having to wait two 
whole weeks to make it. I want you to 


The First Day 


7 


marry me, Christobel. I daresay you 
think me a cheeky young beggar to suggest 
it, point blank. But I want you to give 
me seven days; and, in those seven days, I 
am going to win you. Then it' will seem 
to you, as it does to me, the only possible 
thing to do.’’ 

His brown eyes were wide open now; 
and the glory of the love shining out from 
them, dazzled her. She looked away 

Then the swift colour swept over the 
face which all Cambridge considered classic 
in its stern strong beauty, and she laughed ; 
but rather breathlessly. 

‘‘You amazing boy!” she said. ‘‘Do 
you consider it right to take away a person’s 
breath, in this fashion? Or are you trying 
to be funny?” 

“I have no designs on your breath,” 
said the Boy; “and it is my misfortune, 
but not my fault, if I seem funny.” Then 
he sat forward in his chair, his elbows on 
his knees, and both brown hands held out 
towards her. “I want you to understand. 


8 Under the Mulberry Tree 


dear,” he continued, earnestly, “that I 
have said only a very little of all I have to 
say. But I hope that little is to the point; 
and I jolly well mean it.” 

The Aunt laughed again, and swung the 
toe of her neat brown shoe; a habit she had, 
when trying to appear more at ease than 
she felt. 

“It is certainly to the point,” she said. 
“There can be no possible doubt about 
that. But are you aware, dear boy, that 
I have been assiduously chaperoning you 
and my niece, during the past two weeks; 
and watching, with the affectionate interest 
of a middle-aged relative, the course of 
true love running with satisfactory and 
unusual smoothness?” 

The Boy ignored the adjectives and 
innuendos, and went straight to the point. 
He always had a way of ignoring all side 
issues or carefully introduced irrelevancy. 
It made him a difficult person to deal 
with, if the principal weapon in your ar- 
moury was elaborate argument. 


The First Day 9 

“Why did you say 'Don't’?” asked the 
Boy. 

The Aunt fell at once into the unin- 
tentional trap. She dropped her calmly 
amused manner and answered hurriedly, 
while again the swift colour flooded her 
face: “Boy dear, I hardly know. It was 
something you did, which, for a moment, 
I could not quite bear. Something passed 
from you to me, too intimate, too sweet, 
to be quite right. I said 'Don’t,' as 
involuntarily as one would say 'Don't' to 
a threatened blow.” 

“It wasn't a blow,” said the Boy, 
tenderly. “It was a kiss. Every time I 
looked at your dear beautiful hand, lifting 
the silver teapot, I kissed it. Did n’t you 
feel it was a kiss?” 

“No; I only felt it was unusual; some- 
thing I could not understand; and I did 
not like it. Therefore I said ‘Don't.’” 

“But you admit it was sweet?” persisted 
the Boy. 

'‘Exactly,” replied the Aunt; “quite 


10 Under the Mulberry Tree 

■r 

incomprehensibly sweet. And I do not 
like things I cannot comprehend ; es- 
pecially with amazing boys about!’' 

‘‘Didn’t you know it was love?” asked 
the Boy, softly. 

“No,” replied the Aunt, emphatically; 
“most certainly, I did not.” 

The Boy got up, and came and knelt 
beside the arm of her chair. 

“It was love,” he said, his lips very 
close to the soft waves of her hair. ^ 

“Go back to your seat at once,” said 
the Aunt, sternly. 

The Boy went. 

“And where does j)oor Mollif come in, 
in all this?” inquired the Auht|^ith some 
asperity. 

“Mollie?” said the Boy, complacently. 
“Oh, Mollie understood all right. She 
loves Phil, you know; intends to stick to 
him, and knows you will back her. The 
last part of the time, I brought her notes 
from Phil, every day. Don’t be angry, 
dear. You would have done it yourself, 


The First Day 


II 


if Mollie and Phil had got hold of you, 
and implored you to be a go-between. 
You remember the day we invaded the 
kitchen to see how Martha made those 
little puffy buns — ^you know — the explo- 
sives? You pinch them in the middle, 
, and they burst into hundreds and thou- 
sands of little pieces. Jolly things for a 
stiff stand-up-in-a-crowd-and-all-hold-your- 
own-cups kind of drawing-room party; 
what we used to call ‘a Perpendicular’ in 
my Cambridge days. I suppose they still 
keep up the name. Fancy those little 
buns exploding all over the place ; and when 
you try to pick up the fragments, they 
go into simply millions of crumbs, between 
your agitated fingers and anxious thumb!” 

The Boy slapped his knee in intense 
enjoyment, and momentarily lost the thread 
of the conversation. The Aunt’s mind was 
not sufficiently detached to feel equal to a 
digression into peals of laughter over this 
vision of the explosive buns. She wanted 
to find out how much Mollie knew. When 


12 Under the Mulberry Tree 


the Boy had finished rocking backwards 
and forwards in his chair, she suggested, 
tentatively: '‘You went to the kitchen — ?’' 

“Oh, yes,” said the Boy, recovering. 
“We went to the kitchen to watch Martha 
make them, and to get the recipe. You 
see Mollie wanted them for her father’s 
clerical ‘at homes.’ Oh, I say — ^fancy! 
The archdeacons and curates, the rectors 
and vicars, all standing in a solemn crowd 
on the Bishop’s best velvet-pile carpet; 
then Mollie, so demure, handing round 
the innocent-looking little buns; and, hey 
presto! the pinching begins, and the ex- 
plosions, and the hopeless attempts to 
gather up the fragments!” 

The Boy nearly went off again; but he 
suddenly realised that the Aunt was not 
amused, and pulled himself together. 

“Well, we stopped on the way to the 
kitchen for mutual confidences. It was 
not easy, bounded as we were by you on 
the one side, and Martha on the other. 
We had to whisper. I daresay you thought 


The First Day 


13 


we were kissing behind the door, but we 
jolly well weren’t! She told me about 
Phil; and I told her — oh, I told her some- 
thing of what I am trying to tell you. 
Just enough to make her understand; so 
that we could go ahead, and play the game 
fair, all round. She was awfully glad, 
because she said: T have long feared 
my dear beautiful Aunt would marry an 
ichthyosaurus.’ I asked her what the — 
what the — I mean, what on earth the 
meaning of that was? And she said: ^An 
old fossil.’ ” 

Again the swift flush swept over the 
calm face. But this time the Aunt went 
off, intentionally, on a side issue. 

‘T have heard you say : ' What the deuce ’ 
before now. Boy. But I am glad you 
appear to realise, judging by your la- 
boured efforts to suppress them, that these 
expres^ons shock me.” 

She looked at him, quizzically, through 
half-closed lids; but the Boy was wholly 
earnest. 


14 Under the Mulberry Tree 


“Well, you see,’’ he said, “I am trying 
most awfully hard to be, in every respect, 
just what you would wish the man who 
loves you, should be. ” 

“Oh, you dear boy,” said Christobel 
Charteris, a flood of sudden feeling soften- 
ing her face; “I must make you understand 
that I cannot possibly take you seriously. 
I shall have to tell you a story no one has 
ever heard before; a tender little story 
of a long-ago past. I must tell you the story 
of my Little Boy Blue. Wait here a few 
moments, while I go indoors and give 
orders that we are not to be disturbed.” 

Rising, she passed up the lawn to the 
little white house. The Boy’s eyes fol- 
lowed her, noting with pride and delight 
the tall athletic flgure, fully developed, 
gracious in its ample lines, yet graceful 
in the perfect swing of the well-poised 
walk. During all his college years he had 
known that walk ; admired that stately 
flgure. He had been in the set which 
called her “Juno” and “The Goddess”; 


The First Day 


15 


which crowded to the clubs if there was a 
chance of watching her play tennis. And 
now, during two wonderful weeks, he had 
been admitted, a welcomed guest, to this 
little old-world oasis, bounded by high 
red-brick walls, where she dwelt and ruled. 
Quiet, sunny, happy hours he had spent 
in the hush of the old garden, strolling up 
and down the long narrow velvet turf, 
beneath the spreading trees, from the 
green postern gate in the right-hand corner 
of the bottom wall, to the flight of stone 
steps leading up to the garden-door of the 
little white house. 

The Boy knew, by npw, exactly what 
he wanted. He wanted to marry Christo- 
bel Charteris. 

He must have been rather a brave boy. 
He looked very youthful and slim as he 
lay back in his chair, watching the stately 
proportions of the woman on whom he 
had set his young heart; very slight and 
boyish, in his silver-grey suit, with laven- 
der tie, and buttonhole of violas. The 


i6 Under the Mulberry Tree 

Boy was very particular about his ties 
and buttonholes. They always matched. 
This afternoon, for the first time, he had 
arrived without a buttonhole. In the sur- 
prise and pleasure of his unexpected ap- 
pearance, the Aunt had moved quickly 
down the sunlit lawn to meet and greet 
him. 

Mollie had departed, early that morning. 
Her final words at the railway station, as 
her impish little face smiled farewell from 
the window of her compartment, had been : 
'‘Mind, Auntie dear, no mistake about 
Guy Chelsea! He 's a charming fellow; 
and thank you ever so much for giving 
me such a good time with him. But you 
can report to Papa, that Guy Chelsea, and 
his beautiful properties, and his prospective 
peerage, and his fifty thousand a year, 
and his motor-cars, and his flying-machines, 
are absolutely powerless to tempt me away 
from my allegiance to Phil. Beside, it 
so happens, Guy himself is altogether in 
love with SOMEONE ELSE.” 


The First Day 


17 


The train having begun to move at the 
words “You can report to Papa,“ Mollie 
finished the remainder of the sentence in 
a screaming crescendo, holding on to her 
hat with one hand, and waving a tiny lace 
pocket-handkerchief, emphatically, with 
the other. Even then, the Aunt lost most 
of the sentence, and disbelieved the rest. 
The atmosphere of love had been so un- 
mistakable during those two weeks; the 
superabundant overflow had even reached 
herself, more than once, with an almost 
startling thrill of emotion. 

The Boy had been so full of vivid, 
glowing, joie-de-vivYBy radiating fun and 
gaiety around him. 

In their sets of tennis, played on her 
own court across the lane at the bottom 
of the garden, when she could beat him 
easily were he handicapped by partnership 
with Mollie; but in genuine singles, when 
Mollie had tactfully collapsed on to a seat 
and declared herself exhausted, his swift 
agility counterbalanced her magnificent 


i8 Under the Mulberry Tree 


service, and they were so evenly matched 

that each game proved a keen delight 

In the quiet teas beneath the mulberry 
tree, where the incomprehensible atmos- 
phere of unspoken tenderness gilded the 
light words and laughter, as sunlight touches 

leaf and flower to gold 

At the cosy dinners, to which they 
sometimes asked him; sitting in the garden 
afterwards in the moonlight, when he 
would tell them thrilling tales of aviation, 
describing his initial flights, hairbreadth 
escapes; the joys of rapid soaring; the 
dangers of cross-currents, broken pro- 
pellers, or twisted steering-gear 

On all these occasions, the Boy — ^with his 
enthusiasm, his fun, and his Are — had been 
the life of the happy trio. 

During those evenings, in the moonlight, 
when he started off on air-ships, one heart 
stood still very often while the Boy talked; 
but it stood still, silently. It was Mollie 
who clasped her hands and implored him 
never to fly again; then, in the next breath, 


The First Day 


19 


begged him to take her as a passenger, on 
the first possible occasion. 

Happy days! But Mollie was the at- 
traction; therefore, with Mollie's departure, 
they would naturally come to an end. 

The Boy had not asked if he might 
come again; and, for the moment, she 
forgot that the Boy rarely asked for what 
he wanted. He usually took it. 

She had a lonely luncheon; spent the 
afternoon over letters and accounts, picking 
up the dull threads of things laid aside 
during the gay holiday time. 

It was not the Professor's day for calling. 
She was alone until four. Then she went 
out and sat under the mulberry. The gar- 
den was very quiet. The birds' hour of 
silence was barely over. 

Jenkins, the butler, had been sent into 
the town, so Martha brought out tea; as 
ample, as carefully arranged, as ever; and — 
cups for two ! 

“Why two cups, Martha?" queried Miss 
Charteris, languidly. 


20 Under the Mulberry Tree 


'‘May-be there'll be a visitor," said 
Martha in grim prophetic tones. Then her 
hard old face relaxed and creased into an 
unaccustomed smile. ^^May-be there is a 
visitor," she added, softly; for at that mo- 
ment the postern gate banged, and they 
saw the Boy coming up the garden, in a 
shaft of sunlight. 

The Aunt walked quickly to meet him. 
His arrival was so unexpected ; and she had 
been so lonely, and so dull. 

“How nice of you," she said; “with the 
Attraction gone. But Martha seems to 
have had a premonition of your coming. 
She has just brought out tea, most suggest- 
ively arranged for two. How festive you 
are. Boy! Why this wedding attire? Are 
you coming from, or going to, a function? 
No? Then don't you want tennis after 
tea — a few good hard sets; just we two, un- 
handicapped by our dear little Mollie?" 

“No," said the Boy ; “talk, please, to-day ; 
just we two, unhandicapped by our dear 
little Mollie. Talk, please; not tennis." 


The First Day 


21 


He paused beside the border, full of 
mauve and purple flowers. “How jolly 
those little what-d’you-call- ’ems look, in the 
sunshine,” he said. 

Then the Aunt noticed that he wore no 
buttonhole, and that his tie was lavender. 
She picked four of her little violas, and 
pinned them into his coat. 

“Boy dear,” she said, “you are a masher 
in the matter of ties and buttonholes; only 
it is so essentially you, that one rather 
enjoys it. But this is the first day I have 
known you to arrive without one, and have 
need to fall back upon my garden.” 

“It is a first day,” said the Boy, drop- 
ping into step with her, as she moved 
toward the mulberry tree. ‘ ‘ It starts a new 
regime, in the matter of buttonholes, and — 
other things. I am going to have seven 
days, and this is the first.” 

“Really?” smiled the Aunt, amused at 
the Boy's intense seriousness. “I am 
flattered that you should spend a portion 
of ‘the first day' with me. Let us have 


22 Under the Mulberry Tree 


tea, and then you shall tell me why 
seven days; and where you mean to pass 
them./’ 

The Boy was rather silent during tea. 
The Aunt, trying to read his mind, thought 
at first that he regretted his flannels, and the 
chance of tennis; then, that he was missing 
Mollie. Whereupon the Aunt repeated her 
remark that it was nice of him to come, now 
the Attraction was no longer there. 

This gave him the cue for which he 
waited. His cup was empty, and safely on 
the grass. The floodgates of the Boy’s 
pent-up love and longing burst open; the 
unforgetable words, ‘Tt was always you 
I wanted,” were spoken; and now he waited 
for her, under the mulberry tree. She had 
something to tell him; but, whatever it 
might be, it could not seriously affect the 
situation. He had told her — that was the 
great essential. He would win her in 
seven days. Already she knew just what he 
wanted — a big step for the first day. He 
looked up, and saw her coming. 


The First Day 


•23 


She had regained her usual calm. Her 
eyes were very kind. She smiled at the 
Boy, gently. 

She took her seat in a low basket-work 
chair. He had leapt to his feet. She 
motioned him to another, just opposite 
hers. She was feeling rather queenly. 
Unconsciously her manner became some- 
what regal. The Boy enjoyed it. He knew 
he was bent upon winning a queen among 
women. 

‘T am going to tell you a story,” she 
said. 

“Yes?” said the Boy. 

Tt is about my Little Boy Blue.” 

“Yes?” 

“ You were my Little Boy Blue.” 

“I?” 

“Yes; twenty years ago.” 

“Then I was six,” said the Boy, quite 
unperturbed. 

“We were staying at Dovercourt, on the 
east coast. Our respective families had 
known each other. I used to watch you 


24 Under the Mulberry Tree 


playing on the. shore. You were a very 
tiny little boy.” 

daresay I was quite a nice little boy,” 
said the Boy, complacently. 

“Indeed you were; quite sweet. You 
wore white flannel knickers, and a little 
blue coat.” * 

“I daresay it was quite a nice little 
coat,” said the Boy, “and I hope my 
womenfolk had the tact to call it a ^ blazer.’ ” 

“It was a dear little coat — I should say 
^blazer,’” said the Aunt; “and I called you 
my * Little Boy Blue.’ You also had a blue 
flannel cap, which you wore stuck on the 
back of your curls. I spoke to you twice. 
Little Boy Blue.” 

“Did you?” he said, and his brown eyes 
were tender. “Then no wonder I feel I 
have loved you all my life.” 

“Ah, but wait until you hear my story! 
The first time I spoke to you, it happened 
thus. Your nurse sat high up on the 
beach, in the long line of nurses, gossiping 
and doing needlework. You took your 


The First Day 


25 


little spade and bucket, and marched away, 
all by yourself, to a breakwater; and there 
you built a splendid sand castle. I sat on 
the breakwater, higher up, and watched 
you. You took immense pains; you over- 
came stupendous difficulties ; and every 
time your little cap fell off, you picked it 
up, dusted off the sand with the sleeve of 
your little blue coat, and stuck it on the 
back of your curly head again. You were 
very sweet. Little Boy Blue. I can see 
you now.” 

The Aunt paused, and let her eyes dwell 
upon the Boy in appreciative retrospec- 
tion. If he felt this something of an ordeal, 
he certainly showed no signs of it. Not for 
a moment did his face lose its expression 
of delighted interest. 

‘"Presently,” continued the Aunt, “your 
castle and court-yard finished, you made 
a little cannon in the centre of the court- 
yard, for defence. Then you looked around 
for a cannon-ball. This was evidently a 
weighty matter, and indeed it turned out 


26 Under the Mulberry Tree 

to be such. You stood your spade against 
the breakwater; placed your bucket beside 
it; readjusted your little cap, and trotted 
off almost to the water’s edge. Your con- 
ception of the size of your castle and cannon 
must have become magnified with every 
step of those small sturdy feet, for, arrived 
at the water, you found a huge round stone 
nearly as large as your own little head. 
This satisfied you completely, but you soon 
found you could not carry it in your hands. 
You spent a moment in anxious considera- 
tion. Then you took off your little blue 
coat, spread it upon the sand, rolled the 
cannon-ball upon it, tied the sleeves around 
it, picked up the hem and the collar, hoisted 
the heavy stone, and proceeded slowly and 
with difficulty up the shore. Every mo- 
ment it seemed as if the stone must fall, 
and crush the bare toes of my Little Boy 
Blue. So I fiew to the rescue. 

“ ‘Little Boy Blue,’ I said, ‘may I help 
you to carry your stone ? ’ 

“You paused, and looked up at me.' i 


The First Day 


\ 

n 

doubt if you had breath to answer while 
you were walking. Your little face was 
flushed and damp with exertion; the blue 
cap was almost off; you had sand on your 
eyebrows, and sand on your little straight 
nose. But you looked at me with an ex- 
pression of indomitable courage and pride, 
and you said: ‘Fanks; but I always does 
my own cawwying.’ With that you started 
on; and I fell behind — rebuffed!” 

‘‘Surly little beast!” ejaculated the Boy. 

‘‘Not at all,” said the Aunt. “I won’t 
have my Little Boy Blue called names! 
He showed a fine independence of spirit. 
Now hear what happened next. 

‘‘Little Boy Blue had almost reached his 
castle, with his somewhat large, but other- 
wise suitable, cannon-ball, when his nurse, 
glancing up from her needlework, perceived 
him staggering along in his shirt-sleeves, 
and also saw the use to which he was putting 
his flannel coat. She threw aside the blue 
over-all she was making, rushed down the 
shore, calling my Little Boy Blue every 


28 Under the Mulberry Tree 

uncomplimentary compound noun and 
adjective which entered her irate and flur- 
ried mind; seized the precious stone, un- 
wound the little jacket, flung the stone 
away, shook out the sand and seaweed, and 
straightened the twisted sleeves. Then she 
proceeded to shake the breath out of my 
Little Boy Blue’s already rather breath- 
less little body; put on the coat, jerked him 
up the shore, and plumped him down with 
his back to the sea and his castle, to sit in 
disgrace and listen, while she told the as- 
sembled nurses what a ‘ bom /timp of ^evil ’ 
he was! I could have slain that woman! 
And I knew my Little Boy Blue had no 
dear mother of his own. I wanted to take 
him in my arms, smooth his tumbled curls, 
and comfort him. And all this time he had 
not uttered a sound. He had just ex- 
plained to me that he always did his own 
carrying, and evidently he had learned to 
bear his childish sorrows in silence. I 
watched the little disconsolate blue back, 
usually so gaily erect, now round with 


The First Day 


29 


shame and woe. Then I bethought me of 
something I could do. I made quite sure 
he was not peeping round. Then I went 
and found the chosen stone, and it was 
heavy indeed! I carried it to the break- 
water, and deposited it carefully within the 
court-yard of the castle. Then I sat down 
behind the breakwater, on the other side, 
and waited. I felt sure Little Boy Blue 
would come back for his spade and bucket. 

'‘Presently the nurses grew tired of 
bullying him. The strength of his quiet 
non-resistance proved greater than their 
superior numbers and brute force. Also his 
intelligent little presence was, undoubtedly, 
a check upon their gossip. So he was told 
he might go; I conclude, on the understand- 
ing that he should ‘ be a good boy ’ and cany- 
no more ‘nasty heavy stones.’ I saw him 
rise and shake the dust of the nurses’ circle 
off his little feet! Then he pushed back 
his curls, and, without looking to the right 
or to the left, trotted straight to his castle. 
I wondered he did not glance, however 


30 Under the Mulberry Tree 


hopelessly, in the supposed direction of the 
desired stone. But, no! He came gaily 
on; and the light of a great expectation 
shone in his brown eyes. 

'‘When he reached the breakwater, and 
found his castle, there — safely in the court- 
yard — ^reposed the mighty cannon-ball. He 
stood still a moment, looking at it; and his 
cheeks went very pink. Then he pulled off 
his little cap, and turned his radiant face 
up to the blue sky flecked with fleeting 
white clouds. And — ‘Fank de Lord,* said 
my Little Boy Blue.*’ 

There were unconcealed tears in the 
Aunt’s kind eyes, and she controlled her 
quiet voice with difficulty. But the glory 
of a great gladness had come over the Boy. 
Without as yet explaining itself in words, it 
rang in his voice and laughter. 

‘ ‘ I remember, * * he said. ‘ ‘ Why, of course 
I remember! Not you, worse luck; but 
being lugged up the shore, and fearing I 
had lost my cannon-ball. And, you know, 
as quite a tiny chap, I had formed a habit 


The First Day 


31 


of praying about all my little wants and 
woes. I sometimes think, how amused the 
angels must have been when my small 
petitions arrived. There was a scarecrow, 
in a field, I prayed for, regularly, every 
night, for weeks. I had been struck by the 
fact that it looked lonely. Then I seriously 
upset the theology of the nursery, by pass- 
ing through a course of persistent and fer- 
vent prayer for Satan. It appeared as an 
obvious logical conclusion to my infant 
mind : that if the person who — according to 
nurse — spent all his time in going about 
making everybody naughty, could him- 
self become good, all naughtiness would 
cease. Also, that anybody must be con- 
sidered as 'past praying for,' was an idea 
which nearly broke my small heart with 
rage and misery, when it was first crudely 
forced upon me. I think the arch-fiend 
must have turned away, silent and non- 
plussed, if he ever chanced to pass by, while 
a very tiny boy was kneeling up in his crib, 
pleading with tearful earnestness: ‘Please 


32 Under the Mulberry Tree 


God, bless poor old Satan; make him good 
an’ happy; an’ take him back to heaven.’ 
But it used to annoy nurse considerably, 
when she came into the same prayer, with 
barely a comma between.” 

“Oh, my Little Boy Blue!” cried the 
Aunt. “Why was I not your mother!” 

“Thank goodness, you were not!” said 
the Boy, imperturbably. “I don’t want 
you for a mother, dear. I want you for my 
wife.” 

“So you had prayed about the stone?” 
remarked the Aunt, hurriedly. 

“Yes. While seated there in disgrace, I 
said: ‘Please God, let an angel find my 
cannon-ball, which howwid old nurse 
fwowed away. An’ let the angel cawwy it 
safe to the court-yard of my castle.’ And 
I was not at all surprised to find it there; 
merely very glad. So you see, Christobel, 
you were my guardian angel twenty years 
ago. No wonder I feel I have known and 
loved you, all my life.” 

“Wait until you hear the rest of my 


The First Day 


33 


story, Little Boy Blue. But I can testify 
that you were not surprised. Your brown 
eyes were simply shining with faith and 
expectation, as you trotted down the 
shore. But who said you might call me 
^Christober?^’ 

''No one,'' replied the Boy. "I thought 
of it myself. It seemed so perfect to be able 
to say it on the first of my seven days. 
And, if you consider, I have never called 
you 'Miss Charteris.' You always seemed 
to me much too splendid to be ' Miss ' any- 
thing. One might as well say 'Miss Joan 
of Arc' or 'Miss Diana of the Ephesiails.' 
But of course I won't call you 'Christobel' 
if you would rather not." 

"You quite absurd boy!" said the Aunt, 
laughing. "Call me an3d:hing you like — 
just for your seven days. But you have 
npt yet told me the meaning or significance 
of these seven days." 

The Boy sat forward, eagerly. 

" It 's like this, ' ' he said. ' ' I have always 
loved the story of how the army of Israel 


34 Under the Mulberry Tree 

rnarched round Jericho during seven days. 
It appeals to me. The well-garrisoned, 
invincible city, with its high walls and 
barred gates. The silent determined army, 
marching round it, once every day. Ap- 
parently nothing was happening; but, in 
reality, their faith, enthusiasm, and will- 
power were undermining those mighty 
walls. And on the seventh day, when they 
marched round seven times to the blast of 
the priestly trumpets; at the seventh time, 
the ordeal of silence was over; leave was 
given to the great silent host to shout. 
So the rams’ horns sounded a louder blast 
than ever; and then, with all the pent-up 
enthusiasm born of those seven days of 
silent marching, the people shouted! 
Down fell the walls of Jericho, and up the 
conquerors went, right into the heart of 
the citadel. ... / am prepared to march 
round in silence, during seven days; but on 
the seventh day, Jericho will be taken.” 

being Jericho, I conclude,” remarked 
the Aunt, drily. 'T cannot say I have 


The First Day 


35 


particularly noticed the silence. But that 
part of the programme would be decidedly 
dull; so we will omit it, and say, from the 
first : ‘ Little Boy Blue, come blow me your 

horn!’ ” 

'T shall blow it all right, on the seventh 
day,” said the Boy, ‘'and when I do, you 
will hear it.” 

He got up, came across, and knelt by 
the arm of her chair. 

“I shall walk right up into the heart 
of the citadel,” he said, “when the gates fly 
open, and the walls fall down; and there 
I shall find you, my Queen; and together 
we shall ‘inherit the kingdom.’ O dear 
unconquered Citadel! O beautiful, golden 
kingdom! Don’t you wish it was the 
seventh day now, Christobel?” 

His mouth looked so sweet, as he bent 
over her and said ‘Christo^^/,’ with a 
queer little accent on the final syllable, 
that the Aunt felt momentarily dizzy. 

“Go back to your chair, at once, Boy,'* 
she whispered. 


36 Under the Mulberry Tree 


And he went. 

Neither spoke a word, for some minutes. 
The Boy lay back, watching the mysterious 
moving of the mulberry leaves. The tri- 
umphant happiness in his face was a rather 
breathless thing to see. It made you want 
to hear a great orchestra burst into the 
Hallelujah Chorus. 

The Aunt watched the Boy, and won- 
dered whether she must tell him about the 
Professor, before the seventh day; and 
what he would say, when she did tell him; 
and how Jericho would feel when the army 
of Israel, with silent trumpets and banners 
drooping, marched disconsolate away, leav- 
ing its walls still standing; its gates still 
barred. Poor walls, supposed to be so 
mighty! Already they were trembling. If 
the Boy had not been so chivalrously 
obedient, he could have broken into the 
citadel, five minutes ago. Did he know? 
. . . She looked at his radiant face. . . . 
Yes ; he knew. There were not many things 
the Boy did not know. She must not 


37 


The First Day 

allow the seven days, even though she 
could absolutely trust his obedience and 
his chivalry. She must tell him the rest 
of the story, and send him away to-day. 
Poor invading army, shorn of its glad 
triumph! Poor Jericho, left desolate! It 
was decidedly unusual to be compared to 
Jericho, and Diana of the Ephesians, and 
Joan of Arc, all in the same conversation; 
and it was rather funny to enjoy it. But 
then most things which happened by reason 
of the Boy were funny and unusual. He 
would always come marching ‘as an army 
with banners. ’ The Professor would drive 
up to Jericho in a fly, and knock a decorous 
rat-tat on the gate. Would the walls 
tremble at that knock? Alas, alas! They 
had never trembled yet. Would they ever 
tremble again, save for the march-past of 
the Boy? Would the gates ever really fly 
open, except to the horn-blast of Little 
Boy Blue? . . . The Aunt dared not think 
any longer. She felt she must take refuge 
in immediate action. 


38 Under the Mulberry Tree 


'‘Boy dear, she said, in her most mater- 
nal voice, "come down from the clouds, 
and listen to me. I want to tell you the 
rest of the story of my Little Boy Blue.” 

He sprang up, and came and sat on the 
grass at her feet. All the Boy’s movements 
were so bewilderingly sudden. They were 
over and done, before you had time to 
consider whether or no you intended to 
allow them. But this new move was quite 
satisfactory. He looked less big and manly, 
down on the grass; and she really felt 
maternal, with his curly head so close to 
her knee. She even ventured to put out 
a cool motherly hand and smooth the hair 
back from his forehead, as she began to 
speak. She had intended to touch it only 
once — ^just to accentuate the fact of her 
motherliness — ^but it was the sort of soft 
thick hair which seemed meant for the 
gentle passing through it of a woman’s 
fingers. And the Boy seemed to like it, 
for he gave one long sigh of content, and 
leaned his head against her knee. 


The First Day 


39 


‘'Now I must tell you,” said the Aunt, 
“of the only other time when I ventured 
to speak to my Little Boy Blue. He had 
come to his favourite place beside the 
breakwater. The tide had long ago swept 
away castle, court-yard, and cannon; but 
the cannon-ball was still there. It partook 
of the nature of ‘things that remain.' 
Heavy stones usually do! When I peeped 
over the breakwater. Little Boy Blue was 
sitting on the sand. His sturdy legs were 
spread wide. His bare toes looked like ten 
little pink sea-shells. Between his small 
brown knees, he had planted his bucket. 
His right hand wielded a wooden spade, on 
the handle of which was writ large, in blue 
pencil: Master Guy Chelsea, He was bent 
upon filling his bucket with sand. But 
the spade being long, and the bucket too 
close to him — (Boy, leave my shoe alone! 
It does not require attention) — most of the 
sand missed the bucket, and went over 
himself. I heard him sigh rather wearily, 
and say ‘Blow!' in a tired little voice. I 

1 


40 Under the Mulberry Tree 


leaned over the breakwater. 'Little Boy 
Blue,’ I said, 'may I play with you, and 
help you to fill your bucket with sand?’ 

"Little Boy Blue looked up. His curls, 
his eyebrows, his long dark eyelashes, were 
full of sand. There was sand on his little 
straight nose. But no amount of sand 
could detract from the dignity of his little 
face, or weaken its stem decision. He laid 
down his spade, put up a damp little hand^ 
and, lifting his blue cap to me, said: 'Fanks; 
but I don’t like girls.’ Oh, Master Guy 
Chelsea, how you snubbed me!” 

The Boy’s broad shoulders shook with 
laughter, but he captured the hand still 
smoothing his hair; and, drawing it down 
to his lips, kissed it gently, back and palm, 
and then each finger. 

"Poor kind-hearted, well-meaning little 
girl, ” he saM. "But she must admit, little 
girls of seven are not always attractive to 
small boys of six.” 

"I was not seven,” said the Aunt, with 
portentous emphasis. "Leave go of my 


41 


The First Day 

hand, Boy, and listen. When you were six, 
I was sixteen, ” 

This bomb of the Aunt^s was received 
with a moment's respectftd silence, as be- 
fitted the discharge of her principal field- 
piece. Then the Boy's gay voice said: 

^‘And what of that, dear? When I was 
six, you were sixteen. When I was twenty, 
you were twenty-nine " 

“Thirty, Boy; thirty! Be accurate. And 
now — ^you are twenty-six, and I am getting 
on towards forty " 

‘‘Thirty-six, dear, thirty-six! Be accu- 
rate!" pleaded the Boy. 

“And when you are forty, I shall be fifty, 
and when you are fifty. Boy — only fifty; 
a man is in his prime at fifty — I shall be 
sixty, " 

“And when I am eighty," said the Boy, 
“you will be ninety — ^an old l^dy is in her 
prime at ninety. What a charming old 
couple we shall be! I wonder if we shall 
still play tennis. I think quite the jolliest 
thing to do, when we are very very old — 


42 Under the Mulberry Tree 

quite decrepit, you know — ^will be to stay 
at Folkestone, and hire two bath-chairs, 
with nice active old men to draw them; 
ancient, of course, but they would seem 
young compared to us; and then make 
them race on the Leas, a five-pound note 
to the winner, to insure them really gallop- 
ing. We would start at the most crowded 
time, when the band was playing, and race 
in and out among lots of other bath-chairs 
going slowly, and simply terrified at us. 
Let 's be sure and remember to do it, 
Christobel, sixty years from to-day. Have 
^ou a pocket-book? I shall be a gay young 

person of eighty-six, and you ” 

‘^Boy dear,’’ she said, bending over him, 
with a catch in her voice; ‘'you must be 
serious and listen. When I have said that 
which I must say, you will understand 
directly that it is no use having your seven 
days. It will be better and wiser to raise 
the siege at once, and march away. Listen ! 
. . . Hush, stay perfectly still. No; I 
can say what I am going to say more easily 


The First Day 


43 


if you don’t look at me. . . . Please, 
Boy; please. ... I told you my 'Little 
Boy Blue stories’ to make you realise how 
very much older I am than you. I was 
practically grown up, when you were still 
a dear delightful baby. I could have 
picked you up in my arms and carried you 
about. Oh, cannot you see, that however 
much I loved him — ^perhaps I should rather 
say: just because I love him, because I have 
always wanted to help him carry his heavy 
stones; make the best of his life, and accom- 
plish manfully the tasks he sets himself to 
do — I could not possibly marry my Little 
Boy Blue? I could not, oh I could not, 
let him tie his youth and brightness to a 
woman, staid and middle-aged, who might 
almost be his mother. ” 

The earnest anxious voice, eager in its 
determined insistence, ceased. 

The Boy sat very still, his head bent 
forward, his brown hands clasping his knees. 

Then suddenly he knelt up beside her, 
leaned over the arm of her chair, and looked 


44 Under the Mulberry Tree 


into her eyes. There was in his face such 
a tender reverence of adoration, that the 
Aunt knew she need not be afraid to have 
him so near. This was holy ground. She 
put from off her feet the shoes of doubt and 
distrust; waiting, in perfect calmness, to 
hear what he had to say. 

‘"Dear,” murmured the Boy, tenderly, 
'‘your little stories might possibly have 
had the effect you intended — specially the 
place where you paused and gazed at me 
as if you saw me still with sand upon my 
nose, and ten pink toes like sea-shells ! That 
was calculated to make any chap feel 
youngish, and a bit shy. Was n’t it? Yes; 
they might have told the way you meant, 
were it not for one dear sentence which 
overshadows all the rest. You said just 
now: ‘I knew my Little Boy Blue had no 
mother. I wanted to take him in my arms, 
smooth his curls, and comfort him. ’ Chris- 
tobel, that dear wish of yours was a gift 
you then gave to your Little Boy Blue. 
You can’t take it away now, because he has 


The First Day 


45 


grown bigger. He still has no mother, no 
sisters, no near relations in the world. 
That all holds good. Can you refuse him 
the haven, the help, the comfort you would 
have given him then, now — ^when at last 
he is old enough to know and understand; 
to turn to them, in grateful worship and 
wonder? Would you have me marry a 
girl as feather-brained, as harum-scarum, 
as silly as I often am myself? You suggest 
Mollie; but the Boy Blue of to-day agrees 
with his small wise self of twenty years ago 
arid says: ‘Fanks, but I don’t like girls!’ 
Oh, Christobel, I want a woman’s love, a 
woman’s arms, a woman’s understanding 
tenderness. You said, just now, you wished 
you had been my mother. Does not the 
love of the sort of wife a fellow really wants, 
have a lot of the mother in it too? I ’ve 
been filled with such a glory, Christobel, 
since you admitted what you felt for your 
Little Boy Blue, because I seemed to know 
somehow, that having once felt it, though 
the feeling may have gone to sleep, you 


46 Under the Mulberry Tree 


could never put it quite away. But, if 
your Little Boy Blue came back, from 
the other end of the world, and wanted 


The Boy stopped suddenly, struck dumb 
by the look on the beautiful face beneath 
his. He saw it pale to absolute whiteness, 
while the dear firm lips faltered and trem- 
bled. He saw the startled pain leap into 
the eyes. He did not understand the 
cause of her emotion, or know that he had 
wakened in that strongly repressed nature 
the desperate hunger for motherhood, pos- 
sible only to woman at the finest and best. 

She realised now why she had never 
forgotten her Little Boy Blue of the Dover- 
court sands. He, in his baby beauty and 
sweetness, had wakened the embryo mother 
in the warm-hearted girl of sixteen. And 
now he had come back, in the full strength 
of his young manhood, overflowing with 
passionate ideality and romance, to teach 
the lonely woman of thirty-six the true 
sweet meaning of love and of wifehood. 


47 


The First Day 

Her heart seemed to turn to marble and 
cease beating. She felt helpless in her 
pain. Only the touch of her Little Boy 
Blue, or of baby Boy Blues so like him, that 
they must have come trotting down the 
sands of life straight from the heaven of 
his love and herfe, could ever still this ache 
at her bosom. 

She looked helplessly up into his longing, 
glowing, boyish face — so sweet, so young, so 
beautiful. 

Should she put up her arms and draw it 
to her breast? 

She had given no actual promise to the 
Professor. She had not mentioned him to 
the Boy. 

Ah, dear God! If one had waited twelve 
long years for a thing which was to prove 
but an empty husk after all! In order not 
to fail the possible expectations of another, 
had she any right to lay such a heavy 
burden of disappointment upon her Little 
Boy Blue? And, if she must do so, how 
could she best help him to bear it? 


48 Under the Mulberry Tree 


''Fanks/' came a brave little voice, 
with almost startling distinctness, across 
the shore of memory; ''Fanks, but I always 
does my own cawwying/' 

At last she found her voice. 

'‘Boy dear,’' she said, gently; “please 
go now. I am tired. ” 

Then she shut her eyes. 

In a few seconds she heard the gate 
close, and knew the garden was empty. 

Tears slipped from between the closed 
lids, and coursed slowly down her cheeks. 
The only right way is apt to be a way 
of such pain at the moment, that even 
those souls possessing clearest vision and 
endowed with strongest faith, are un- 
able to hear the golden clarion-call, sound 
ing amid the din of present conflict : 
“Through much tribulation, enter into 
the kingdom.” 

Thus hopeless tears fell in the old garden. 


And Martha, the elderly housekeeper, 


49 


The First Day 

faithful but curious, let fall the lath of the 
green Venetian blind covering the store- 
room window, through which she had per- 
mitted herself to peep. As the postern gate 
closed on the erect figiu*e of the Boy, she 
dropped the blind and turned away, an 
unwonted tear running down the furrows 
of her hard old face. 

''Lord love 'im!*' she said. "He’ll get 
what he wants in time. There ’s not a 
woman walks this earth as could n’t never 
refuse 'im nothing.’’ 

With which startling array of negatives, 
old Martha compiled one supreme positive 
in favour of the Boy, leaving altogether out 
of account — ^alas! — ^the Professor. 

Then she wiped her eyes with her apron, 
and chid her nose harshly for an unexpected 
display of sentiment. 


And the Boy tramped back to his hotel 
with his soul full of glory, knowing his first 
march round had been to some purpose. 

4 


50 Under the Mulberry Tree 


The walls of the belovdd Citadel had 
trembled indeed. 


And the evening and the morning were 
the first day'' 


THE SECOND DAY 
Miss Charteris Takes Control 


51 




THE SECOND DAY 


MISS CHARTERIS TAKES CONTROL 



j|HE,Boy arrived in flannels, his 
racket under his arm. He 
came in, as usual, through 
the little green gate in the 
red-brick fruit wall at the bottom of the 
garden. From the first, he had taken this 
privilege, which as a matter of fact had 
never been accorded to anybody. 

The Professor always entered by the 
front door, placed his umbrella in the 
stand, wet or shine; left his goloshes on 
the mat; hung up his cap and gown, and 
followed Jenkins into the drawing-room. 
Though he had called regularly, twice a 
week, during the last dozen years — ^flrst on 
his old friend and tutor, Professor Charteris; 
after his death, on his widow and daughter; 

53 * 



54 Under the Mulberry Tree 


and, when Miss Charteris was left alone, on 
herself only — ^he never failed to knock and 
ring; nor did he ever enter unannounced. 

The Boy had dashed in at the garden gate 
on the occasion of his second visit, and ap 
peared to consider that he had thus created 
a precedent which should always be followed. 

Once, and once only — on her thirtieth 
birthday — the Professor had brought Miss 
Charteris a bouquet; but, being very 
absent-minded, he deposited the bouquet 
on the mat, and advanced into the 
drawing-room, carrying his goloshes in his 
left hand. Having shaken hands with 
his right, he vaguely presented the goloshes. 
Miss Charteris, never at a loss where her 
friends were concerned, took the Professor’s 
goloshes from his hand, carried them out into 
the hall, found the bouquet on the mat, and 
saved the situation by putting the flowers 
in water, and thanking the Professor with 
somewhat more hilarity than the ordinary 
presentation of a bouquet would have called 
forth. 


The Second Day 


55 


But to return to the second day. The 
Boy arrived in flannels, and tea was a merry 
meal. The Boy wanted particulars con- 
cerning the marriage, which had taken place 
a year or so before, between Martha — 
maid of thirty years' standing, now acting 
as cook-housekeeper to Miss Charteris — 
and Jenkins, the butler. The Boy wanted 
to know which proposed, Jenkins or Mar- 
tha; in what terms they announced the 
fact of their engagement, to Miss Charteris ; 
whether Jenkins ever “bucked up and 
looked like a bridegroom," and whether 
Martha wore orange blossom and a wed- 
ding-veil. He extorted the admission that 
Christobel had been present at the wedding, 
and insisted on a detailed account; over 
which, when given at last, he slapped his 
knee so often, and went into such peals 
of laughter, that Miss Charteris glanced 
anxiously towards the kitchen and pantry 
windows, which unfortunately looked out 
on the garden. 

The Boy expatiated on his enthusiastic 


56 Under the Mulberry Tree 


admiration for Martha; but at the same 
time was jolly well certain he would have 
bolted when it came to ‘T, Martha, take 
thee, Jenkins,” had he stood in the latter’s 
shoes. Miss Charteris did not dare admit, 
that as a matter of fact the sentence had 
been: ‘T, Martha, take thee, Noah.” 
That the meek Jenkins should possess so 
historical and patriarchal a name, would 
completely have finished the Boy, who was 
already taking considerable risks by com- 
bining much laughter with an unusually 
large number of explosive buns. 

The Boy would have it, that, excepting 
in the r61e of bride and subsequent con- 
jugal owner and disciplinarian, Martha was 
perfect. 

Miss Charteris admitted Martha’s un- 
rivalled excellence as a cook, her economy in 
management, and fidelity of heart. But 
Martha had a temper. Also, though un- 
doubtedly a superficial fault, yet trying to 
the artistic eye of Miss Charteris, Martha’s 
hair was apt to be dishevelled and untidy. 


The Second Day 


57 


‘Tt is a bit wispy/' admitted the Boy, 
reluctantly. ''Why don't you tell her so? " 

Miss Charteris smiled. "Boy dear, I 
dare n't! It would be as much as my place 
is worth, to make a personal observation to 
Martha!" 

"I 'll tell her for you, if you like," said 
the Boy, coolly. 

"If you do," warned Miss Charteris, "it 
will be the very last remark you will ever 
make in Martha's kitchen, Boy." 

"Oh, there are ways of telling'' said 
the Boy, airily; and pinched an explosive 
bun. 

After tea they took their rackets and 
strolled down the lawn, pausing a moment 
while she chose him a buttonhole. The tie 
was orange on this second day, and she 
gathered the opening bud of a William 
Allen Richardson rose. She smiled into 
its golden heart as she pinned it in his white 
flannel coat. Somehow it brought a flash 
of remembrance of the golden heart of 
Little Boy Blue, who could not bear that 


58 Under the Mulberry Tree 

any one should be past praying for, or that 
even a scarecrow should seem lonely. 

They crossed the lane and entered the 
paddock; tightened the net on the tennis- 
court; chose out half a dozen brand-new 
balls, and settled down to fast and furious 
singles. 

Miss Charteris played as well as she 
had ever played in her life; but the Boy was 
off his service, and she beat him six to four. 
Next time, he pulled off ‘games all,’ but lost 
the set; then was beaten, three to six. 

Miss Charteris was glowing with the 
exercise, and the consciousness of being in 
great form. 

“Boy dear!” she called, as she played 
the winning stroke of the third set, “I’m 
afraid you ’re lazy to-day!” 

The Boy walked up to the net, and looked 
at her through his racket. 

“I ’m not lazy,” he said; “but I ’m on 
the wrong side of Jordan. This sort of 
thing is waste of time. I want to go over, 
and start marching.” 


59 


The Second Day 

Don’t be absurd, Boy. I prefer this 
side Jordan, thank you; and you shall stay 
here until you beat me.” 

The Boy won the next set. 

It was deliciously cool and quiet under 
the mulberry tree. 

The Boy was quite subdued — for him. 
He seemed inclined to do his marching in 
silence, on this second day. 

Miss Charteris felt her mental balance 
restored. She held the reins to-day, and 
began considering how to deal wisely with 
the Boy. So much depended upon how 
she managed him. 

At length she said: '‘Boy, when you 
were at Trinity, I often used to see you. 
I knew you were my Little Boy Blue of all 
those years ago. I used to feel inclined to 
send for you, talk to you for your good, and 
urge you to set to, and do great things; 
but I remembered the stone, and the 
bucket; and I did not want to let myself 
in for a third snubbing.” 


6o Under the Mulberry Tree 


The Boy smiled. '‘Did you think me a 
lazy beggar?"' he asked. 'T was n't really, 
you know. I did quite a good deal of all 
kinds of things. But I did n't want to get 
played out. I wanted to do things all the 
rest of my life. Fellows who grind at 
college and come out Senior Wrangler, 
begin and end there. You don't hear of 
'em again." 

'T see," said Miss Charteris, amusement 
in her eyes. "So you felt it wisest to 
avoid being Senior Wrangler?" 

"Just so, " said the Boy. "I was content 
with a fairly respectable B. A. and I hope 
you saw me take it. How rotten it is, 
going up in a bunch, all hanging on to an 
old chap's fingers." 

"Boy, Boy! I know all about you! 
You wasted golden opportunities; you de- 
clined to use your excellent abilities; you 
gave the authorities an anxious time. You 
were so disgracefully popular that every- 
body thought your example the finest 
thing to follow, and you were more or less 


The Second Day 6i 

responsible for every lark and row which 
took place during your time/’ 

The Boy did not smile. He looked at 
her, with a quaint, innocent seriousness, 
which made her feel almost uncomfortable. 

'‘Dear,” he said, “I had plenty of 
money, and heaps of friends, and I wanted 
to have a good time. Also I wanted all the 
other fellows to have a good time; and I 
enjoyed getting the better of all the old 
fogies who had forgotten what youth was 
like — ^if they ’d ever known it. And I had 
no mother to ask me questions, and no 
sisters to turn up at my rooms unex- 
pectedly. But I can tell you this, Chris- 
tobel. I hope to be married soon; and I 
hope to marry a woman so sweet and noble 
and pure, that her very presence tests a 
man’s every thought, feeling, and mem 
ory. And I can honestly look into your 
dear eyes and say: My wife will be wel- 
come to know every detail of every prank 
I ever played in Cambridge; nor is there 
a thing in those three years I need feel 


62 Under the Mulberry Tree 

ashamed of her knowing. There! Will 
that do?"' 

Miss Charteris threw out a deprecatory- 
hand. ‘'Oh, Boy dear!'* she said. “I 
never doubted that. My Little Boy Blue, 
don't I know you? But I cannot let you 
talk as if you owe me any explanations. 
How curious to think I saw you so often 
during those years, yet we never actually 
met." 

The Boy smiled. “Yes," he said, “we 
were all awfully proud of you, you know. 
What was it you took at Girton?" 

Miss Charteris mentioned, modestly, the 
highest honours in classics as yet taken 
by a woman. The Boy had often heard 
it before. But he listened with bated 
breath. 

“Yes," he said, “we were awfully proud 
of it, because of your tennis, and because 
of you being — ^well, just you. If you had 
been a round-shouldered little person in 
a placket, we should have taken it 
differently. We always called you ‘The 


The Second Day 63 

Goddess/ because of your splendid walk. 
Did you know?'' 

'‘No, Boy; I did not know; but I confess 
to feeling immensely flattered. Only, take 
a friend's advice, and avoid conversational 
allusions to plackets, because you are 
obviously ignorant of the meaning of the 
word. And now, tell me? Having suc- 
cessfully avoided so serious a drawback 
to future greatness as becoming Senior 
Wrangler, on what definite enterprise have 
you embarked?" 

“Flying," said the Boy, sitting forward 
in his chair. “I am going to break every 
record. I am going to fly higher, farther, 
faster, than any man has ever flown before. 
This week, if I had not stayed on here — 
you know originally I came up only for 
the ‘May week' — I was to have done a 
Channel flight. Ah, you don't know what 
it means, to own three flying-machines, all 
of different make, and each the best of its 
kind! You feel you own the world! And 
then to climb into your seat and go whirling 


64 Under the Mulberry Tree 


away, with the wonderful hum in your 
ears, mastering the air — the hitherto in- 
vincible air. May I tell you what I am 
going to do for my next fly? Start from the 
high ground between Dover and Folkestone; 
fly over the Channel; circle round Boulogne 
Cathedral — ^you remember the high dome, 
rising out of the old town surrounded by 
the ramparts? Then back across the Chan- 
nel, and to ground again at Folkestone,*' all 
in one flight; and I hope to do it in record 
time, if winds are right.’' 

''And if winds are wrong. Boy? If you 
rush out and take the horrid risks of the 
crosscurrents you told us about? If some- 
thing happens to your propeller, and you 
fall headlong into the sea?” 

"Oh, it 's all U. P. then,” said the Boy, 
lightly. "But one never expects that sort 
of thing to happen; and when it does, all 
is over so quickly that there is no time 
for anticipation. Beside, there must be 
pioneers. Every good life given, advances 
the cause.” 


The Second Day 


65 


Christobel Charteris looked at him. His 
was not the terrible, unmistakable, relent- 
less face of the bird-man. He was brilliant 
with enthusiasm; but it was the enthusiasm 
of the sportsman, keen to excel; of Young 
England, dauntless, fearless, eager to break 
records. The spirit of the true bird-man 
had not, as yet, entered into her Little 
Boy Blue. 

She pressed her hand upon her bosom. 
It ached still. 

‘‘Boy dear,” she said, softly. “Has it 
ever struck you, that if you marry, your 
wife — ^whoever she might be — ^would most 
probably want you to give up flying? 
I cannot imagine a woman being able to 
bear that a man who was her ally should 
do these things.” 

The Boy never turned a hair! He did 
not bound in his seat. He did not even 
look at her. 

“Why, of course, dear,” he said, “if you 
wished it, I should give up flying, like a 
shot, and sell my aeroplanes. I know 


66 Under the Mulberry Tree 


plenty of chaps who would like to buy them 
to-morrow. And I ’ll tell you what we 
would do. We ’d buy the biggest, most 
powerful motor-car we could get, and we ’d 
tear all over the country, exceeding the 
speed-limit, and doing everything jolly we 
could think of. That would be every bit 
as good as flying, if — ^if we did it together. 
I say, Christobel — do you know how to 
make a sentence of Together’? Just three 
words: to get her! That ’s what Together’ 
spells for me, now.” 

Miss Charteris smiled. “You might 
have taken honours in spelling. Boy. And 
I am not the sort of person who enjoys 
exceeding speed-limits. Also I am afraid 
I have a troublesome habit of always 
wanting to stop and see all there is to see. ” 

But the Boy was infinitely accommo- 
dating. “Oh, we wouldn’t exceed the 
speed-limit — ^much. And we would stop 
everywhere, and see everything. You 
should breakfast in London; lunch at the 
Old White Horse, Mr. Pickwick’s inn at 


The Second Day 


67 


Ipswich; have tea at the Maid's Head, be- 
neath the shadow of Norwich Cathedral, 
where you could wash your hands in Queen 
Elizabeth's fusty old bedroom — ^what a 
lot of bedrooms Queeh Elizabeth slept in, 
and made them all fusty — and have time 
to show me Little Boy Blue's breakwater 
at Dovercourt, before dinner. There 's 
nothing like motoring ! " 

'Tt sounds interesting, certainly," said 
Miss Charteris. 

‘'And then,", continued the Boy, in a 
calm business-like voice, “it 's less expen- 
sive than flying. You run through fifty 
thousand a year in no time with aeroplanes. 
And of course we should want to open both 
my places. I 'm awfully glad I did n't 
let the tenants in the old home renew their 
lease. As it is, they turn out in three 
months. Oh, I say, Christ obel, I do believe 
it is a setting worthy of you. Have you 
ever seen it? The great hall, the old 
pictures, the oak staircase — I once rode 
down it on my rocking-horse and came to 


68 Under the Mulberry Tree 


utter smash. And outside^ — the park, the 
lake, the beech avenue, the rose-garden, 
the peacocks. And a funny little old vil- 
lage belongs to us. Think how the people 
must want looking after. I believe you 
would like it all — I really believe you would ! 
And think, ah, just think what it would be 
to me, to see my own splendid wife, queen 
over everything in my dear jolly old home! 
Hullo! Hark to all the clocks! What is 
that striking? Seven? Oh, I say! I 'm 
dining with the Master to-night. I must 
rush off, and change. Though I was such 
a bad lot, they all seem quite pleased to see 
me again. Really they do! Have I stayed 
too long? . . . Sure? . . . May I come 
to-morrow? ... You are most awfully 
good to me. Good-bye." 

And the Boy was gone. He had held 
her hand, in a firm, strong clasp, a second 
longer than the conventional handshake; 
his clear eyes, exactly on a level with hers, 
had looked at her gravely, wistfully, ten- 
derly; and he was gone. 


The Second Day 


69 


She walked slowly up the lawn. She 
must write a few letters before post time; 
then dress for her solitary dinner. 

She felt a little flat; quite without cause. 
What could have been more satisfactory, in 
every way, than the Boy’s visit; in spite of 
his absurd castles in the air? These must 
be tactfully demolished to-morrow. To- 
day, it was wisest just to let him talk. 

Poor Little Boy Blue! Instead of the 
walls of Jericho falling, his own castles in 
the air would come tumbling about his ears. 
Poor Little Boy Blue! 

She felt she had been completely mistress 
of the situation to-day, holding it exactly 
as she wished it to be. There was no need 
to fear the remaining days. 

And when the seven days were over — 
what then? . . . She certainly felt very 
flat this evening. How suddenly the Boy 
had gone! There was still so much she 
wanted to say to him. . . . And to- 
morrow was the Professor’s afternoon. 
Mercifully, he never stayed later than four 


70 Under the Mulberry Tree 


o^clock. It was to be hoped the Boy would 
not turn up early! But there was never 
any knowing what the Boy would do. 

She smiled as she mounted the flight 
of stone steps, and passed into the house. 


And, outside the postern gate, the Boy 
threw up his cap, and caught it ; then started 
off and sprinted a hundred yards; then, 
turning aside, leapt a five-barred gate, and 
made off across the fields. When he pulled 
up at last, in his own bedroom, he had just 
time to tub, shave, and wrestle with his 
evening clothes. He communed with him- 
self in the few moments of enforced stillness, 
while he mastered his tie. 

“That was all right,'' he said. “I jolly 
well worked that all right I There was 
nothing to frighten her to-day — not a thing. 
Dear lips I They never trembled once ; 
and no more turning faint. And, my 
Goody, how she lectured me! I wonder 
who 's been telling her what. I know why 


The Second Day 


71 


she did it, too. She wanted to feel quite 
sure she was bossing the show. And so 
she was, bless her! But I marched round! 
Yes, I jolly well marched round. . . . Oh, 
I say! Can’t you stop where I put you?” 
This, to his tie. 

Then, with her golden rose in his button- 
hole, fastened by the pin from his flannel 
coat, off went the Boy to dine with the 
Master of his college. 


^^And the evening and the morning were 
the second day.' ' 


1 



. « 




« 


A 


* % 


1 



• . 


I 



THE THIRD DAY 
The Boy Invades the Kitchen 


73 




\ * 



, M • ■ * ‘ ' ' •h” 

SS'-U' ' 







» ,** \ ; \ , 

* • . • 
, j’.'v 

< « a I 




t. 0 V 1 . I . ■! 


W! i 

ShotS/v-. iJ I. 


i ' 

I )< 


. <1 


- ^ I ■i ■ » • ' I » • ■ ' ' 

’ { • *"■'/•'' ■ ■ f’ ' ' ' • \ 

■f ■' >y '>Ar“! • . 

. . . . ‘ '/Fi -. ^ . 


V f * I > '« 

fe-''®'-'*' 




• • 



Ht’ 


& 





, V 


V'V 

ite- ■■ ' ■' -■ 

WV\V.^T/I,?' ■ ■ 

;Jj * ^‘'z' ^ * ' 


ft' . / 

’■■ ■ V \ ' 


. 1 - 


*r. 







*' V,* ,FW« • 

i ,, >‘v' 

Li.u' 1 * ,7 •..; ^'■!;WV^^ 

O'!’ . '' " '.' A If. 







THE THIRD DAY 


THE BOY INVADES THE KITCHEN 

Boy sat on* a comer of 
5 kitchen table, swinging 
loose leg, and watching 
irtha make hot buttered- 

toast. 

He had arrived early, and finding no 
one in the garden, had entered the house 
by the garden-door, to pursue investi- 
gations upstairs. 

On the mat in the hall he saw a pair 
of goloshes; in the umbrella-stand, a very 
large, badly-rolled umbrella; hanging on 
a peg near by, a professor’s cap and gown. 

The Boy stood stock still in the middle 
of the little hall, and looked at the goloshes. 

Then from the drawing-room, through 
the closed door, came the voice of Miss 



75 



76 Under the Mulberry Tree 

Charteris — ^full, clear, measured, melodious 
— ^reading Greek tragedy. 

ippoig avaiSeg iv raj^i veavia 

declaimed Miss Charteris; and the Boy fled. 

Arrived in the kitchen, he persuaded 
Martha that cigarette smoke was fatal to 
black-beetles. He went about, blowing 
fragrant clouds into every possible crack 
and cranny. Martha watched him, out 
of the comer of her eye, crawling along 
under the dresser in his immaculate white 
flannels, and Martha blessed her stars 
that her kitchen floor was so spotlessly 
clean. Only this morning she had re- 
marked to Jenkins that he could very well 
eat his dinner off the boards. Mercifully, 
Jenkins— tiresome man though he usually 
was — ^had not taken this literally; or he 
might have made the floor less fit for the 
Boy's perambulations. 

Having taken all this trouble in order 
to establish his unquestioned right to 
smoke in Martha’s kitchen, and to pose 


The Third Day 


77 


as a public benefactor while so doing, the 
Boy seated himself on the edge of the 
table, exactly behind Martha; lighted a 
fresh ‘Zenith,’ and prepared to enjoy 
himself. 

Martha glanced nervously at the smoke, 
issuing from cracks and holes on all sides. 
It gave her a feeling that the house was 
on fire. Of course she knew it was not; 
but to feel the house is on fire, is only one 
degree less alarming than to know it is. 
However, beetles are nasty things ; and the 
condescending kindness and regard for 
Martha’s personal comfort, which crawled 
about after them in white flannels, was 
gratifying to a degree. 

So Martha turned and gave the Boy 
one of her unusual smiles. He was very 
intently blowing rings — “bubbles” Martha 
called them afterwards, when explaining 
them to Jenkins; but that was Martha’s 
mistake. They were smoke rings. It was 
one of the Boy’s special accomplishments. 
He was an expert at blowing rings. 


78 Under the Mulberry Tree 


Presently: — “Martha, my duck — “ he 
said suddenly. 

Martha jumped. “Bless us, Mr. Guy! 
What a name!” 

“What's the matter with it?” inquired 
the Boy, innocently. “I consider it a very 
nice name, and scriptural.” 

“Oh, I didn’t mean m’ own name,” ex- 
plained Martha, more flushed than the 
warmth of the fire warranted. “Not but 
what m’ godfathers and godmothers might 
well ’ave chosen me a better.” 

“Oh, don’t blame them, overmuch, 
Martha,” said the Boy, earnestly. “You 
see their choice was limited. If you study 
your catechism you will find that it had 
to be ‘N’ or ‘M’ — 'Naomi’ or 'Martha.’ 
Even at that early age, they thought you 
favoured 'Martha’ rather than 'Naomi’; 
so they named you 'Martha.’” 

“Well I never!” exclaimed Mrs. Jenkins. 
“ 'N’ or 'M’! So it is! Now I never 
noticed that before. We live and learn! 
And Jenkins — silly man — ’as always bin 


The Third Day 


79 


annoyed that they named *im 'Noah/ 
But how about when you was christened, 
Mr. Guy?’’ 

"Oh,” explained the Boy, with a wave 
of his cigarette, "I was christened a bit 
later than you, Martha; and, by that time. 
Parliament had sat in solemn convocation, 
and had brought in a Bill to the effect that 
all needless and vexatious limitations and 
restrictions in the Prayer-book might for 
the future be disregarded. The first to 
go, was 'N’ or 'M.’” 

"Well, I never!” said Martha. "I wish 
they ’d ha’ done it afore my time. ” 

"You see,” expounded the Boy, who 
was enjoying himself vastly, and getting 
the conjunction of the goloshes and the 
Greek play off his mind; "you see, Martha, 
those progressive Bills, intimately affecting 
the whole community, of vital importance 
to the nation at large, are always blocked 
by the House of Lords. If the Commons 
could have had their own way, you might 
have been named 'Lucy’ or 'Clara.’” 


8o Under the Mulberry Tree 


'T don't incline to 'Lucy' or 'Clara,' 
sir," said Mrs. Jenkins, decidedly; "being 
as they always strikes me sickly story- 
book sort of names; but I do like justice 
and a free country! I always have felt 
doubtful o' them Lords, since I listened 
to my married niece's husband, a very 
respectable journeyman tailor but mostly 
out of work; and if it 's their doing that 
I 'm 'Martha,' well, I shall know what 
to do with Jenkins's vote^ — ^that 's all!" 

The Boy slapped his leg and rocked. 
"Martha, you ought to be put up to speak 
at political meetings. That 's the whole 
thing in a nutshell; cause, effect, results, 
arguments, everything! Oh, my wig! — 
Yes, they are a lot of old stick-in-the- 
muds in the Upper House, aren't they?" 
pursued the Boy — ^who had had a long 
line of dignified ancestors in that much 
abused place; had an uncle there at the 
present moment, and was more than likely 
eventually to have to sit there himself — 
"a rotten lot of old stick-in-the-muds, 


The Third Day 


8i 


Martha ; but I think they did well by 
you. I 'd give them the benefit of Jen- 
kins's vote. I really would. I am glad 
they chose ‘M,' not ‘N.' Naomi was a 
widow and dismal. She never made the 
smallest effort to buck up. But Martha 
was a nice person; a bit flurried perhaps, 
and hot-tempered; but well up in cooking, 
and keen on it. I like Martha." 

The Boy sat and meditated. Why did 
she read Greek plays with a person who 
left goloshes on the mat, and brought 
out an ancient umbrella with a waist, on 
an absolutely cloudless day? 

“It wasn't m' own name surprised 
me, Mr. Guy, sir," remarked Martha, 
coyly; “it was the name you was pleased 
to /jadd. " 

The Boy pulled himself together. “Eh, 
what? Oh, ‘Martha, my duck'? I see. 
I hope you don't mind, Martha. It seemed 
to me rather a suitable and pretty addition 
•to ‘Martha.' You see, yours is a name 
which cannot be shortened when one 


82 Under the Mulberry Tree 


feels affectionate. ‘Sarah' can be ‘Sally'; 
‘Amelia' can be ‘Milly'; ‘Caroline' can 
be ‘Carrie’; but ‘Martha’ remains ‘Mar- 
tha’ however loving people feel. What 
does Jenkins call you when he feels 
affectionate ? ” 

Martha snorted. “Jenkins knows 'is 
place," she said, jerking the round lid off 
the stove, and putting on the kettle. 

^ “Jenkins is a model,” smiled the Boy. 

Then Martha looked round, her feminine 
curiosity, and perhaps a touch of jealousy, 
getting the better of her respectful dis- 
cretion. She had seen so much, and heard 
so little; and she was a very old family 
servant. 

“What do you call her, Mr. Guy?” she 
asked, in a confidential whisper, with a 
jerk of the head toward the mulberry tree. 

“Her?” repeated the Boy, surprised. 
Then his whole tone softened. It was 
so sweet to speak her name to someone. 
“I call her ‘ChristObel, '” he said, gently. 

But Martha wanted to know more. 


83 


The Third Day 

Martha was woman enough to desire an 
unshared possession of her own. She bent 
over the fire, stirring it through the bars. 

‘‘Mr. Guy, sir, I suppose you don't — 
I suppose you do — that is to say, sir — 
Do you call her what you Ve been pleased 
to call me?” 

''Eh, what?” said the Boy, vaguely. 
"Oh, I see. 'Christobel, my — ' Oh no, 
Martha. No, I don't! Not even wheg, 
I feel most affectionate.” Here the Boy 
was seized with sudden convulsions, slapped 
his knee noiselessly, and rocked on the 
kitchen table. He whispered it, in an 
ecstasy of enjoyment. "'Christobel, my 
duck!' Oh, lor! 'Christobel, my duck!' 
I hope I shall be able to resist telling her. 
I should have to own I had called Martha 
so. 'Christobel, my ' ” 

Martha, wondering at the silence, looked 
round suddenly. But the Boy had that 
instant recovered, and was sitting gravely 
on the corner of the table. 

"Martha, my duck,” he said, "to return 


84 Under the Mulberry Tree 


to the original opening of this conversation: 
has Jenkins ever told you what a nice 
little wisp of hair you have, behind your 
left ear?'' 

'‘Get along, sir!" retorted Martha, 
fairly blushing. You 're making game of 
me. 

"Indeed, I 'm not," said the Boy, seri- 
ously. "If you made it into a curl, Martha, 
and fastened it with an invisible pin, it 
would be quite too fascinating. You ask 
Jenkins. I say, Martha? What 's a 
placket?" 

"A placket, sir," said Martha, on her 
way to fetch something from a shelf near 
which hung the kitchen mirror; "a 
placket, sir, is a thing which shows when 
it shouldn't." 

"I see," said the Boy. "Then you 
could n't exactly go about in one. Martha, 
whose goloshes are those, sitting on the 
mat in the hall? " 

Martha snorted. "An old woman's," 
she said, wrathfully. 


85 


The Third Day 

The Boy considered this. '*And does 
the umbrella with the waist belong to the 
same old woman?’' 

Martha nodded. 

“And the Professor’s cap and gown, 
hanging near by?” 

Martha hesitated. “ ’T ain’t always 
petticoats makes an old woman,” she 
said, sententiously. 

“Martha, you are /?ro-foundly right,” 
said the Boy. “Does the Professor stay 
to tea?” 

“Thank goodness no, sir. We draw 
the line at that, ’cept when Miss Hsixm 
comes too.” 

“Who is Miss i7ann?” 

“She’s the Professor’s sister.” Martha 
hesitated; poured hot water into the silver 
teapot; then turned to whisper confiden- 
tially, with concentrated dislike: “She ’s 
always a-/jegging of ’em on!” 

“What a curious occupation,” remarked 
the Boy, blowing a smoke-ring. “Does 
Miss Harm come often?” 


86 Under the Mulberry Tree 


‘'No, Mr. Guy. Thanks be, she's a 
/jin valid." 

“Poor Miss i^ann. What 's the matter 
with her?" 

Martha snorted. “Fancies herself too 
much." 

“What a curious complaint. What are 
the symptoms?" 

“Fancies herself in a bath-chair," said 
Martha, scornfully. 

“I see," said the Boy. “Oh, poor Miss 
iTann! I should feel very sick if I fancied 
myself in a bath-chair. I wish I could 
meet Miss I should like to talk 

to her about the begging-on business." 

“ You 'd make her sit up," said Martha, 
with spiteful enjoyment. 

“Oh no, I shouldn't," said the Boy. 
“That would not be kind to an invalid. I 
should see that she reclined, comfortably; 
and then I should jolly well flatten her 
out." 

At that moment a shadow fell across the 
sunny window. Miss Charteris, her guest 


The Third Day 


87 


having departed, passed down the garden 
steps, and rnoved across the lawn. 

The Boy sprang to his feet. At sight of 
her, his conscience smote him that he should 
have thus gossiped and chaffed with old 
Martha. He suddenly remembered why 
he had originally found his way to the 
kitchen. 

‘'Martha,'’ he said; “I want you to let 
me carry out the tea-tray this afternoon. 
She does n’t know I am here. She will 
think it is you or Jenkins, till she looks 
round. Let me carry it out, Martha, 
there ’s a duck!” 

“As you please, sir,” said Martha; “but 
if you want her to think it ’s Jenkins, 
you must put it down with a clatter. It 
takes a man to be clumsy.” 

The Boy walked over to the window. 
The mulberry tree was not visible from 
the kitchen table. 

“Don’t go there, Mr. Guy!” cried 
Martha. ‘ ‘ Miss Christobel will see you, sir. 
This window, and the pantry, show from 


88 Under the Mulberry Tree 

the garden. If you want to ’ave a look at 
her, go through that door into the store- 
room. The Venetian blind is always down 
in there. There is one crack through 
which I ” 

Martha stopped short, disconcerted. 

“One crack through which you think I 
could see? Thank you, Martha,'’ said the 
Boy, readily. “Hurry up with the tray.” 

He went into the store-room; found 
Martha’s chink, and realised exactly what 
had been the extent of Martha’s view, 
during the last two days. 

Then he bent his hungry young eyes on 
Christ obel. 

She was seated in a garden chair, her 
back to the house, her face towards the 
postern gate in the old red wall at the 
bottom of the garden. The rustic table, 
upon which he would soon deposit the tea- 
tray, was slightly behind and to the left 
of her. The sun shone through the 
mulberry leaves, glinting on the pure 
whiteness of her gown. She leaned her 


89 


The Third Day 

beautiful head back wearily. Her whole 
attitude betokened fatigue. He could not 
see her face; but he felt sure her eyes 
were open; and he knew her eyes were on 
the gate. 

The Boy’s lips moved. “Christobel,” he 
whispered. Christobel — ^belovM? ” 

She was waiting; and he knew she was 
waiting for him. 

Presently he dropped the lath of the 
Venetian blind, and turned to go. But first 
he took out his pocket-book and fastened 
the lath which lifted most easily, to those 
above and below it, with* halfpenny stamps. 
He knew old Martha would take a hint 
from him. There must be no eyes on 
the mulberry tree to-day. 

In the kitchen the tray was ready; tea 
freshly made, thin bread-and-butter, let- 
tuce sandwiches; hot buttered-toast in 
perfection; corn-flour buns, warranted to 
explode; all the things he liked most; and, 
best of all, cups for two. He grasped the 
tray firmly with both hands. 


90 Under the Mulberry Tree 

“Martha,” he said, “you are a jewel! 
I give you leave to watch me down the lawn 
from the kitchen window. But when I 
have safely arrived, turn ybur attention to 
your own tea, or I shall look up and shake 
my fist at your dear nice old face. And, 
I say, Martha, do you ever write post- 
cards? Because, if you want any ha’penny 
stamps, you will find some on the store- 
room blind. Only, don't want them, Mar- 
tha, till this week is over, and I am 
gone.” 

Whereupon the Boy lifted the tray, and 
made for the door. 

Down the lawn he bore it, and set it 
safely on the rustic table. He was very 
deft of movement, was the Boy; yet, re- 
membering his instructions, he contrived to 
set it down with something of a clatter. 

Miss Charteris did not turn her head. 
Her eyes, half closed beneath the long 
lashes, were on the postern gate. 

“Jenkins?” she said. 

“Yes, ma’am,” replied the Boy, in ex- 


The Third Day 91 

cellent imitation of the meek tones of 
Jenkins. 

'‘Should any one call this afternoon, 
Jenkins, please remember that I am not 
‘at home’. ” 

“Hip, hip, hurrah!” said the Boy. 

Then she turned — and her face was all, 
and more than all, he had hoped it might 
be. 

“Oh, Boy,” she said. “Oh, Boy dear!” 


After that, it was a very happy tea. 
Neither had been quite natural, nor had 
they been really true to themselves, the 
day before; so the delight of meeting seemed 
to follow a longer parting then the actual 
twenty-four hours. The Boy’s brown eyes 
rested in tenderness on the hand that filled 
his cup, and she did not say “Don’t”; she 
merely smiled, indulgently, and added 
the cream and sugar slowly, as if to let 
him do what he willed. 

The hum of bees was in the garden; a 


92 Under the Mulberry Tree 

sense of youth was in the air. The sun- 
beams danced among the mulberry leaves. 

The Boy insisted upon carrying back 
the tray, to do away at once with the pos- 
sibility of interruption from Jenkins. Then 
he drew their chairs into the deeper shade 
of the mulberry tree, a comer invisible from 
all windows. The Boy had learned a lesson 
while looking through the store-room blind. 

Then they sat and talked, in calm con- 
tent. It did not seem to matter much of 
what they spoke, so long as they could lie 
back facing one another; each listening to 
the voice which held so much more of 
meaning in it than the mere words it 
uttered; each looking into the eyes now 
become clear windows through which shone 
the soul. 

Suddenly the Boy said: '‘How silly 
we were, the other day, to talk of the rela- 
tive ages of our bodies. What do they 
matter? Our souls are the real you and I. 
And our souls are always the same age. 
Some souls are old — old from the first. I 


The Third Day 


93 


have seen an old soul look out of the eyes 
of a little child; and I have seen a young 
soul dance in the eyes of an old, old woman. 
You and I, thank God, have young souls, 
Christobel, and we shall be eternally 
young.’' 

He stretched his arms over his head, in 
utter joyful content with life. 

“Go on. Boy dear,” said Christobel. 
“I am not sure that I agree with you; 
but I like to hear you talk.” 

“At first,'” he said, “our bodies are so 
babyish, that our souls do not find them 
an adequate medium of expression. But 
by and by our bodies grow and develop; 
after which come the beautiful years of 
perfection, ten, twenty, thirty of them, 
when the young soul goes strong and gay 
through life, clad in the strong gay young 
body. Then — gradually, gradually, the 
strong young soul, in its unwearied, im- 
mortal youth, -wears out the body. The 
body grows old, but not the soul. No- 
thing can age that; and when at last the 


94 Under the Mulberry Tree 

body quite wears out, the young soul 
breaks free, and begins again. Youthful 
souls wear out their bodies quicker than old 
ones; just as a strong young boy romps 
through a suit of clothes sooner than a 
weakly old man. But there is always life 
more abundant, and a fuller life further on. 
So the mating of souls is the all-important 
thing; and when young souls meet and 
mate, what does it matter if there be a few 
years’ difference in the ages of their bodies? 
Their essential youthfulness will surmount 
all that.” 

Christobel looked at him, and truly for a 
moment the young soul in her leapt out to 
his, in glad response. Then the other side 
of the question rose before her. 

“Ah, but. Boy dear,” she said, “the 
souls express themselves — their needs, their 
delights, their activities — through the 
bodies. And suppose one body, in the soul- 
union, is wearing out sooner than the other; 
that is hard on the other — ^hard on both. 
Boy — ^my Little Boy Blue — shall I tell 


The Third Day 


95 


you an awful secret? I suppose I sat too 
closely over my books at Girton; I suppose 
I was not sufficiently careful about good 
print, or good light. Anyway — Boy dear 
— I have to use glasses when I read.” She 
looked wistfully into his bright eyes. ' ‘ You 
see? Already I am beginning to grow old.” 
Her sweet lips trembled. 

In a moment he was kneeling by the 
arm of her chair, bending over her, as he 
did on the first day; but as he did not do 
yesterday. Suddenly she realised why she 
had felt so flat yesterday, after he was gone. 

He lifted her hand and kissed it gently, 
back and palm. Then he parted the third 
finger from the rest, with his own brown 
ones, and held that against his warm young 
lips. 

She drew her hand slowly away; passed 
it over his hair; then let it fall upon her 
lap. She could not speak; she could not 
move; she could not send him away. She 
wanted him so — ^her Little Boy Blue, of long 
ago. 


96 Under the Mulberry Tree 


“Old, my BelovM?“ he said. “You — 
old! Never! Always perfect — ^perfect to 
me. And why not wear glasses? Heaps 
of mere kids wear glasses, and wear them 
all the time. Only — ^how alarmingly clever 
you must look in spectacles, Christobel. 
It would terrify me now; but by and by it 
will make me feel proud. I think one would 
expect glasses to go with those awe-in- 
spiring classical honours. With my barely 
respectable B. A., I dare n’t lay claim to any 
outward marks of erudition.’’ Then, as 
she did not smile, but still gazed up at him, 
wistfully, his look softened to still deeper 
tenderness: “Dear eyes,’’ he murmured, 
“oh dear, dear eyes,’’ and gently laid his 
lips on each in turn. 

“Don’t,’’ she said, with a half sob. 
“Ah, Boy, don’t! You know you must 
not kiss me.’’ 

“Kiss you!’’ he said, still bending over 
her. “Do you call that kissing?’’ Then 
he laughed; and the joyous love in his 
laughter wrung her heart. “Christobel, 


The Third Day 


97 


on the seventh day, when the gates fly open, 
and the walls fall down; when the citadel 
surrenders; when you admit you are my 
own — then I shall kiss you; then you will 
know what kissing really means.’’ 

He bent above her. His lips were very 
near to hers. She closed her eyes and 
waited. Her own lips trembled. She 
knew how fearfully it tempted the Boy that 
her lips should tremble because his were 
near; yet she let them tremble. She forgot 
to remember the past ; she forgot to consider 
the future. She was conscious of only one 
thing: that she wanted her Little Boy Blue 
to teach her what kissing really meant. 
So she closed her eyes and waited. 

She did not hear him go; but presently 
she knew he was no longer there. 

She opened her eyes. 

The Boy had walked across the lawn, and 
stood looking into the golden heart of an 
opening yellow rose. His back appeared 
very uncompromising ; very determined ; 
very erect. 


98 Under the Mulberry Tree 


She rose and walked over to him. As 
she moved forward, with the graceful 
dignity of motion which was always hers, 
her mental balance returned. 

She slipped her hand beneath his arm. 
^‘Come, Boy,” she said; “let us walk up 
and down, and talk. It is enervating to 
sit too long in the sunshine.” 

He turned at once, suiting his step to 
hers, and they paced the lawn in silence. 

When they reached the postern gate the 
Boy stood still. Something in his look 
suddenly recalled her Little Boy Blue, when 
the sand on his small nose could not de- 
tract from the dignity of his little face, nor 
weaken its stem decision. 

He took both her hands in his, and looked 
into her eyes. 

”Christobel,” he said, must go. I 
must go, because I dare not stay. You 
are so wonderful this afternoon ; so dear be- 
yond expression. I know you trust me ab- 
solutely; but this is only the third day; and 
I cannot trust myself, dear. So I 'm off!” 


99 


The Third Day 

He lifted both her hands to his lips. 
'‘May I go, my Queen?” he said. 

"Yes, Boy,” she answered. "Go.” 

And he went. 

It was hard to hear the thud of the clos- 
ing door. For some time she stood waiting, 
just on the inside. She thought he would 
come back, and she wished him to find her 
there, the moment he opened the door. 

But the Boy — ^being the Boy — did not 
come back. 

Presently she returned to her chair, in 
the shade of the mulberry tree. She lay, 
with closed eyes, and lived again through 
the afternoon, from the moment when the 
Boy had said : " Hip, hip, hurrah ! ” There 

came a time when she turned very pale, and 
her lips trembled, as they had done before. 

At length she rose and paced slowly up 
the lawn. On her face was the quiet calm 
of an irrevocable decision. 

"Tomorrow,” she said, "I must tell the 
Boy about the Professor.” 


100 Under the Mulberry Tree 

In the middle of the night, Martha being 
wakeful, became haunted by the remem- 
brance of the smoke, as it had curled from 
cracks and keyholes in the kitchen. She 
felt constrained to put on a wonderful pink 
wrapper, and go creaking slowly down the 
stairs to make sure the house was not on 
fire. Martha’s wakefulness was partly 
caused by the unusual fact of a large and 
hard curl-paper, behind her left ear. 

Miss Charteris was also awake. She 
was not worried by memories of smoke, or 
vision of fire; and her soft hair was com- 
pletely innocent of curl-papers. But she 
was considering how she should tell the 
Boy about the Professor; and that con- 
sideration was not conducive to calm slum- 
ber. She heard Martha go creaking down 
the stairs; and, as Martha came creaking 
up again, she opened her door, and con- 
fronted her. 

'‘What are you doing, Martha?” she 
said. 

Martha, intensely conscious of her curl- 


The Third Day 


lOI 


paper, was about to answer with more 
than her usual respectful irritability, when 
the eyes of the two women — ^mistress and 
maid — ^met, in the light of their respective 
candles, and a sudden sense of fellowship in 
the cause of their night vigil passed be- 
tween them. 

Martha smiled — a crooked smile, half 
ashamed to be seen smiling. When she 
spoke, her aspirates fell away from her more 
completely than in the daytime. 

“ T went crawlin' about the kitchen," 
she said, in a muffled midnight whisper; 
'‘all in ’is white flannels, puffin’ smoke in 
every crack an’ ’ole to kill the beetles. So 
kind ’e meant it; but I couldn’t sleep for 
wonderin’ if the place was smokin’ still. 
I ’ad to go down an’ see. ’Ow come you to 
be awake. Miss Christobel?’’ 

“Things he said in the garden, Martha, 
have given me food for thought. I began 
thinking them over; and sleep went.’’ 

Martha smiled again — ^and this time the 
smile came more easily. “ ’E ’as a way of 


102 Under the Mulberry Tree 


keepin' one on the go/' she said; '‘but 
we 'd best be gittin' to sleep now, miss. 
'E '11 be at it again tomorrow, bless 'is 
'eart!" And Martha, in her pink wrap- 
per, lumbered upwards. 

But the Boy, who had this disturbing 
effect on the women who loved him, 
slept soundly himself, one arm flung high 
above his tumbled head. And if the sweet 
mother, who perforce had had to let her 
dying arms slip from about her baby-boy, 
almost before his little feet could carry him 
across a room, saw from above the pure 
radiance on his lips and brow as he slept, 
she must have turned to the Emerald 
Throne with glad thanksgiving for the 
answer vouchsafed to a dead mother's 
prayers. 


And the evening and the morning were 
the third day'' 


THE FOURTH DAY 
Christobel Signs Her Name 


103 




THE FOURTH DAY 


CHRISTOBEL SIGNS HER NAME 

AM exhausted,*’ said the 
Boy, reaching out a long 
arm, and securing his third 
piece of hot buttered-toast. 
am ruffled. My usual calm mental 
poise is overthrown — and on the Sabbath, 
of all days! Every feather I possess has 
been rubbed up the wrong way.” He lay 
back in the depths of his chair, stretched 
out his legs, and looked dejectedly at 
Christobel. 

Her quiet smile enveloped him. Her 
look was as a cool touch on a hot forehead. 

” Poor Little Boy Blue! I thought some- 
thing was wrong. I should feel a keener 
anxiety, were the hot buttered-toast less 
obviously consoling.” 



105 



io6 Under the Mulberry Tree 


‘T 'll jolly well never go again," said the 
Boy, with indignation. "Not me!" 

"Before you were born. Boy; when I went 
to school," said Miss Charteris, "we were 
taught to say: ‘Not And if you were 
to tell me where you have been, on this 
Sabbath afternoon, I might be able to give 
you more intelligent sympathy." 

"I Ve been to a drawing-room meeting, " 
said the Boy, "and I Ve heard a woman 
hold forth. For an hour and a quarter, 
I Ve sat stuffed up, breathing the atmos- 
phere of other people’s go-to-meeting clothes, 
and heard a good lady go meandering on, 
while I had no room for my legs. " 

"I thought you seemed finding them 
extra long. Boy. Why did you go to a 
•drawing-room meeting?" 

"I went," said the Boy, "because the 
dear old thing in whose house it was held, 
asked me to go. She used to know my 
mother. When I was at Trinity she looked 
me up, often invited me to her charming 
home, gave me excellent little dinners, 


107 


The Fourth Day 

followed by the kindest, nicest, most nerv- 
ous, little preachments. Don’t look amused, 
dear. I never failed to profit. I respected 
her for it. She is as good and genuine as 
they make ’em; and if she had stood up 
this afternoon, with her friendly smile, and 
dear shaky old voice, and given us an 
exposition of the twenty-third Psalm, we 
should have all come away quite ‘good and 
happy.’ Instead of which — oh, my wig!” 

The Boy took an explosive bun, and put 
it whole into his mouth. “The only way to 
manage them on Sunday,” he explained, 
as soon as speech was possible, “when 
sweeping is not the right thing. But let 
us hope Mollie’s papa’s ‘clerical brethren’ 
won’t find it out. There would certainly be 
less conversation and fewer crumbs, but 
no fun at all. ” 

“I don’t think you need be afraid. Boy 
dear. Even should such a way out of the 
difficulty occur to them, I am inclined to 
think they would prefer the explosion, to 
the whole bun at a mouthful. It has a 


io8 Under the Mulberry Tree 


rather startling effect you know, until one 
gets used to seeing it done. I can’t quite 
imagine an archdeacon doing it, while 
standing on the hearthrug in conversation 
with my brother. Now tell me what the 
good lady said, which you found so trying. ” 
*'Oh, she meandered on,” grumbled the 
Boy. '‘She told us all we should have been, 
if we had not been what we were; and all 
we might be, if we were not what we are; 
and all we shall be when we are not what we 
was. She implored us to consider, and 
weigh well, where we should go, if, by a 
sudden and unexpected dispensation of 
Providence, we ceased to be where we then 
were. I jolly well knew the answer to 
that; for if Providence had suddenly dis- 
pensated — ^which it did n’t, for a good 
three quarters of an hour — I should have 
been here, here, here, as fast as my best 
Sunday boots could carry me ! ” His brown 
eyes softened. “Ah, think what ^here' 
means, ’ ’ he said. ‘ ‘ Think ! ‘ Here ’ means 
You!'' 


109 


The Fourth Day 

But Miss Charteris did not wish the 
conversation to become too meltingly 
personal. 

‘‘What else did she say, Boy?'’ 

He consulted the mulberry leaves, then 
bounded in his chair. “Ha, I have it! 
I kept this tit-bit for you. She used an 
astronomical illustration, I have n’t the 
least idea apropos of what, but she told us 
exactly how many millions of miles the sun 
is from the earth; and then she smiled upon 
us blandly, and said: ‘Or is it billions?’ 
Think of that 1 She said : ‘ Or is it billions ? ’ 
in exactly the same tone of voice as she 
might have said of the bonnet she had 
on: ‘I bought it, at a sale, for eleven pence 
three farthings, or was it a shilling?''' 

“Oh, Boy, you really are naughty! I 
never connected you with personal sar- 
casm. ” 

“Yes, but that sort of woman should n’t,” 
complained the Boy. “And with half 
Cambridge sitting listening. ‘Millions, or 
is it billions? ’ Oh lor ! ” 


no Under the Mulberry Tree 

“Poor thing!” remarked Miss Charteris. 
“She could not have known that she had 
in the audience a person who had only just 
avoided the drawback' to future enter- 
prise, of being Senior Wrangler. Had she 
realised that, she would have been more 
careful with her figures.” 

“Tease away!” said the Boy. “I don't 
care, now I am safe here. Only I shan't 
tell you any more. ” 

“I don’t want to hear any more. Boy. 
I always enjoy appreciations, even of things 
I do not myself appreciate. But non- 
appreciations do not appeal to me. If a 
person has meant to be effective and 
proved inadequate, or tried to do good and 
done harm, I would rather not know it, 
unless I can help to put matters right. 
Have some more tea. Boy; and then I want 
to talk to you myself. I have something 
rather special to tell you.” 

The Boy stood up and brought his cup 
to the little table. When she had filled it, 
he knelt on one knee beside her, his elbow 


The Fourth Day iii 

on the arm of her chair, and drank his tea, 
there. 

‘'T am sorry, dear,” he said, presently. 
'T won’t do it again. Perhaps I listened 
wrong, because I was bored at being there 
at all. I say, Christobel — it has just oc- 
curred to me — did you know my mother?” 

The old garden was very still. A hush, 
as of the Paradise of God, seemed suddenly 
to fall upon it. As the Boy asked his quiet 
question, a spirit seemed to hover, between 
them and the green dome of mulberry leaves 
above them, smoothing the Boy’s tumbled 
hair, and touching the noble brow of the 
woman the Boy loved; a gentle, watching, 
thankful spirit^ — eternally remembering, and 
tenderly glad to be remembered. For a few 
moments the silence was a silence which 
could not be broken. The Boy lifted 
wondering eyes to the moving leaves. 
Christobel laid her hand upon his, as it 
gripped her chair. An unseen voice seemed 
to whisper to the Boy — ^not in the stem 
tones of the Church, but as an eager, 


1 12 Under the Mulberry Tree 

anxious, question : — “ Wilt thou — ^have — 
this woman — ^to be thy wedded wife? And 
silently the Boy replied: ''Please God, I 
wiir'; and, bending, kissed the hand resting 
on his. 

The spell lifted. Christobel spoke. 

''"Yes, Boy dear, I knew her. I have 
often wondered whether I might tell you. 
She and my mother were dear friends. I 
was thirteen when she died. You were 
three, poor Little Boy Blue! Two things 
I specially remember about your mother: — 
the peculiar radiance of her face — a light 
from within, shining out; and the fact that 
when she was in a room, the whole atmos- 
phere seemed rarefied, beautified, uplifted. 
I think she lived very near heaven, Boy; 
and, like Enoch, she walked straight in one 
day, and came back no more. She 'was 
not ' ; for God took her. " 

Another long holy silence. The mul- 
berry leaves were still. Then the Boy 
said, softly: "Some day, will you tell me 
heaps more — details — ^lots of little things 


The Fourth Day 


1 13 

about her? No one ever has. But I seem 
almost to begin to remember her, when 
you talk of her. Meanwhile, may I show 
you this?*' 

He drew from the inner pocket of his 
coat, a small well-worn pocket-Bible. Open- 
ing it at the fly-leaf, he passed it to Miss 
Charteris. 

“It was hers,“ he said. 

She bent over it and read the inscription : 

M, A, Chelsea 

“ Through faith and patience inherit the promises,^' 

Below, in a delicate writing, traced by a 
hand that trembled: 

To my Baby Boy from his Mother 

‘‘7 have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not” 

She looked at it in silence. How much 
had this book meant during all these years, 
to the “Baby Boy“? Had the book in his 
pocket, and the prayers hovering about him, 
something to do with the fact that he was 
still — ^just Little Boy Blue? 


1 14 Under the Mulberry Tree 


The Boy had taken a fountain pen from 
his pocket, and was shaking it vigorously 
over the grass. 

Now he passed it to her. 

"‘Write your dear name beneath,” he 
said. 

Infinitely touched, she made no comment, 
raised no question. She took the pen, 
and wrote just '' ChristoheL*' 


And the evening and the morning were 
the fourth day,'" 


THE FIFTH DAY 


Guy Chelsea Takes Control 


•I 

j 


n 


i 




) 

I 

f 

1 

. 

• i 

i 



THE FIFTH DAY 


GUY CHELSEA TAKES CONTROL 

Wy Sir Boy/' said Miss 
Charteris with decision, 
^'this is your fifth day. 
Our time is nearly over. 
You have done most of the talking. You 
have had things entirely your own way. 
What? . . . Oh well, almost entirely your 
own way. I have allowed you to play your 
Old Testament game to your heart's con- 
tent. With commendable adaptability, / 
have been Jericho, and you have marched 
round. I have been Jericho in my own 
garden, and have refreshed the invading 
army with hot buttered-toast and explosive 
buns. Now it is my turn to take the in- 
itiative. Jenkins having removed the tea, 
and it being too hot for tennis, I am 




ii8 Under the Mulberry Tree 


going to ask you to sit still, while I ex- 
plain to you quite clearly why I must send 
you away at the close of the seventh day” 

She tried to hide her extreme trepidation 
beneath a tone of gay banter. She hoped 
it did not sound as forced to him as it did 
to herself. The Boy's clear eyes were fixed 
upon her. Had he noticed the trembling 
of her hands, before she steadied them by 
laying hold of the arms of her chair? 

”So now for a serious talk, if you please. 
Sir Boy.” 

” Excuse me, dear,” said the Boy, “the 
Israelites were not allowed to parley.” 

“You need not parley,” said Miss Char- 
teris, “you are merely requested to listen. 
You may smoke if you like. I understand 
cigarette smoke is fatal to black-beetles. 
Possibly it has the same effect on garden 
insects. Russell tells me we are overrun 
by snails. Smoke, Boy, if you like.” 

“Dear,” said the Boy, his head thrown 
back, his hands thrust deep into his coat 
pockets, “I never have the smallest desire 


The Fifth Day 119 

to smoke in your presence. I should feel 
as if I were smoking in church."' 

^‘Oh, you dear amazing altogether ab- 
surd boy! Don't look at me like that. 
And don't say such unexpected things, or 
I shall be unable to parley satisfactorily." 

‘'When I went to school," remarked the 
Boy, “and you were an engaging little 
girl in a pigtail, I was taught to say: ‘Do 
not look at me thus' ; at least, masters 
frequently appeared to think it necessary 
to make that remark to me. I can't 
imagine why ; because they were; not 
specially worth looking at; excepting that 
a very large person, in a very angry con- 
dition, always presented a spectacle of 
extreme interest to my juvenile mind. It 
was so fascinating to watch and see what 
they would do next. They were like 
those wooden monkeys and bears you 
buy in Swiss shops, don't you know? You 
pull a hanging string, and their legs and 
arms jump about unexpectedly. One al- 
ways felt a really angry grown-up was a 


120 Under the Mulberry Tree 


mere puppet. Unseen fingers were pulling 
the string; and it was funny to watch. 
There was an exciting element of danger, 
too; because sometimes a hand jerked up 
and boxed your ears.*' 

'‘Little Boy Blue,'* she said, "it must 
have been quite impossible to have been 
mildly angry with you. Either one would 
have waxed impotently furious; or one 
would have wanted to — ^to hug you!" 

The Boy leapt up. 

"Sit down," said Miss Charteris, "or 
I shall send you away. And I do not 
wish to do that; because I have quite made 
up my mind to tell you to-day, a thing 
which I suppose I ought to have told you 
long ago; and I tried to do so, Boy; but 
somehow you always made it impossible. 
I want to — to tell you about — ^the Pro- 
fessor. " She paused. 

It was so very difficult. It was like 
rolling a heavy stone up a steep hill. And 
the Boy made no attempt to help her. 
He lay back with an exaggerated display 


I2I 


The Fifth Day 

of resignation. He looked at her with 
sleepy, amused eyes. And he asked no 
questions. The army of Israel obviously 
declined to parley. 

'T have long felt I ought to tell you 
about th~e Professor,*' continued Miss 
Charteris. 

The Boy sighed. 'T think I jolly well 
know all there is to know about pro- 
fessors*’ he said. 

‘‘Not about this one,** explained Miss 
Charteris. “He is my Professor.** 

“Oh, if he *s your Professor,** said the 
Boy, sitting up, “of course I am inter- 
ested. But I am not sure that I approve 
of you having a tame Professor; especially 
when it arrives in goloshes, and leaves 
them in the hall.** 

“I am afraid nobody will ask whether 
you approve or not. Little Boy Blue. The 
Professor has been a great friend of mine 
during nearly twelve years; and I think 
I am possibly — ^in fact, very probably — 
going to marry the Professor.** ^ 


122 Under the Mulberry Tree 

'‘Really?” said the Boy. "May I ask 
when he proposed?” 

"He has not proposed, Boy.” 

The Boy produced his pocket-book, took 
out a calendar, and studied it attentively. 

"Then I 'm afraid you will have some 
time to wait,” he said. "It will not be 
leap-year again until 1912.” 

This sounded impertinent; but the Boy 
could no more have been guilty of inten- 
tional impertinence toward her, than he 
could have picked her pocket; and Miss 
Charteris knew it. There was one thing 
of which those who had dealings with 
Christobel Charteris could always be sure 
— absolute justice. She had seen the Boy’s 
face whiten suddenly, to a terrible pallor, 
beneath his tan. She knew he was making 
a desperate fight for self-control. How 
best could she help? Her own part seemed 
almost more than she could manage. 

"ComeViere, Boy dear,” she said, hold- 
ing out her hand. 

He hesitated one instant; then rose un- 


L 


The Fifth Day 


123 


steadily to his feet, and came — not to his 
usual place at the side, bending over her; 
but in front of her, on one knee, silently 
waiting. 

She bent forward. '‘Take my hand. 
Boy.” 

He took it, in a firm unhesitating clasp. 
They held each other so, in silence. The 
colour came back into the Boy’s face. 
The dumb horror died out of his eyes. 
They smiled into hers again. 

“Now promise me. Boy dear, that you 
will let me tell you all; and that you will 
try not to misunderstand.” 

“My dearest,” said the Boy, “I promise. 
But I do not need to say I will try not 
to misunderstand. I could not misunder- 
stand you, if I tried.” 

“Then go back to your chair. Boy.” 

He went. His eyes were bright again. 

“Boy, please to understand that I am 
not engaged to the Professor. Of course, 
had that been the case, I should have told 
you, long ago. He has never said one 


124 Under the Mulberry Tree 

word to me of love or marriage. But he 
has been a great friend — ^an intimate friend, 
intellectually; and I have reason to know 
that he wishes — has wished for years — a 
good deal more than he has ever expressed 
to me. He has waited, Boy; and when 
anybody has waited nearly twelve years, 
could one fail them?” 

“Why, of course!” cried the Boy, eagerly. 
“If a man could wait twelve years — good 
heavens, why should n't he wait twenty 1 
A man has no business to wait; or to be 
able to wait; or to keep a woman waiting. 
Twelve years? Oh, I say! I didn't wait 
twelve days. Now, did I?” 

She smiled. “You break all speed 
records. Boy, always. But cannot you 
understand that all men have not fifty 
thousand a year, and the world at their 
feet? Had you been penniless, Boy, you 
— even you— would have had to wait.” 

“Not a bit!” said the Boy, stoutly. 
“I would drive a cab, I would sweep a 
crossing, I would do anything, or be any- 


The Fifth Day 


125 


thing; but I would n’t wait for the woman 
I loved; nor would I” — ^his voice dropped 
almost to a whisper — ‘‘keep the woman who 
loved me, waiting.” 

“But suppose she had a comfortable 
little income of her own ; and you had less — 
much less — to offer her? Surely, Boy, 
proper pride would keep you from asking 
her to marry you, until your income at 
least equalled hers?” 

“Not a bit!” said the Boy. “That sort 
of rot is n’t proper pride. It ’s just selfish 
false pride. However much a woman had, 
when a man — -a man mind you, not an 
old woman, or a thing with no pluck or 
vertebra — when a man gives a woman his 
whole love, his whole life, the worship 
of his whole body, heart, and soul, he has 
given her that which no money could buy; 
and were she a millionairess she would 
still be poor, if, from false pride, he robbed 
her of that gift which was his to give her 
— and perhaps his alone.” 

“Boy dear,” she said, gently; “it sounds 


126 Under the Mulberry Tree 

very plausible. But it is so easy to be 
plausible with fifty thousand a year in 
the background. Let me tell you about 
the Professor. He has, of course, his fellow- 
ship, and is quite comfortably off now, 
living as a bachelor, in rooms. But he 
practically supports his unmarried sister, 
considerably older than himself, who lives 
in a tiny little villa, and keeps one maid. 
The Professor could not afford to marry 
and set up a larger establishment on his 
present income ; at least he apparently 
thinks he could not. And your theory of 
robbing the woman who — the woman he 
loves, does not appear to have occurred 
to him. But, during all these years he has 
been compiling an Encyclopedia — I don’t 
suppose you know what an Encyclopedia 
is. Boy.” 

“Oh, don’t I?” said the Boy. “It ’s a 
thing you pile up on the floor to stand upon, 
when you want to fix a new pipe-rack.” 

Miss Charteris ignored this trying defi- 
nition of an Encyclopedia. 


The Fifth* Day 


127 


''The Professor is compiling a wonderful 
book/' she said, with dignity; "and, when 
it is completed and published he will be 
in a position to marry." 

"Has he told you so?" inquired the 
Boy. 

"No, Boy. He has never mentioned the 
subject of marriage to me. But he has 
told his sister; and she has told me." 

"Ha!" said the Boy. "Miss Hann, I 
suppose. I must say, I distrust Miss 
iJann. " 

"What do you know of Miss Ann?" 
inquired Christ obel, astonished. 

"Only that she’s always a-/jegging of 
’em on," said the Boy, calmly. 

The indignant blood rushed into the 
fair proud face. 

"Boy! You’ve been gossiping with 
Martha." 

"I have, dear; I admit it. You see, I 
arrived early, on the third day; found the 
garden empty; went gaily into the house 
to look for you. Ran up into the hall; 


128 Under the Mulberry Tree 


when up got a pair of old goloshes — eh, 
what? Oh, sorry — up got a pair of new 
goloshes, and hit me in the eye! A pro- 
fessor’s cap and gown hung up, as if at 
home; and while I meditated upon these 
things, the voice of my BelovM was uplifted 
in loud and sonorous Greek, exclaiming: 
'Avaunt, rash youth! Thou impudent in- 
truder!’ Can you wonder that I avaunted 
— to Martha?” 

"You will please tell me at once all 
Martha said to you. ” 

"Of course, I will, dear. Don’t be vexed. 
I always meant to tell you, sometime or 
other. I asked her whose were the goloshes ; 
the umbrella with the — er — decided figure; 
the suspended cap and gown. Martha 
said they were the Professor’s. I inquired 
whether the Professor stayed to tea. You 
really can’t blame me for asking that; 
because I had gone to the kitchen for the 
express purpose of carrying out the tea- 
tray, yours and mine ; but not the Professor’s. 
No possible pleasure could have resulted. 


The Fifth Day 


129 


either to you, or to me, or to the Profes- 
sor, from my unexpected appearance with 
the tea-tray, if the Professor had been there. 
Now could it? I think it would be nice of 
you, dear, and only fair, if, remembering the 
peculiar circumstances of that afternoon, 
you just said: ‘No; it could n’t. ’ 

“Well, I asked Martha whether the 
Professor stayed to tea, and heard that 
‘Thank goodness, no!’ we drew the line 
at that, ‘except when Miss Haim, came 
too.’ With the awful possibility of Miss 
Harm ‘ coming too, ’ on one of my priceless 
days, I naturally desired a little light 
thrown on Miss Harm. I was considerably 
relieved to learn that Miss Harm suffers 
from the peculiar complaint — ^mental, I 
gather — of ‘ fancying herself in a bath- 
chair. ’ This might be no hindrance to 
the ‘/^egging on’ propensities, but it cer- 
tainly diminished the chances of the ‘com- 
ing too. ’ That was all, dear. ” 

“Boy, you ought to have been ashamed 
of yourself!” 

9 


130 Under the Mulberry Tree 

‘‘So I was, the moment I saw you walk 
down the lawn. But you really need n’t 
look so indignant. I was working for you, 
at the same time. ” 

‘ ‘ Working for me ? ” 

‘‘Yes, dear. I told Martha her wisps 
would look nicer if she curled them. I 
also suggested ‘invisible pins.’ If you like 
I will tell you how I came to know about 
‘invisible pins’; but it is a very long story, 
and not specially interesting, for the lady 
in the case was my great-aunt. ” 

“Oh, Boy,’’ said Miss Charteris, laugh- 
ing in spite of herself; “I wish you were 
the size of my Little Boy Blue on the sands 
at Dovercourt. I would dearly like to 
shake you. ” 

“Well,” he said, “you did more than 
shake me, just now. You gave me about 
the worst five minutes I ever had in my 
life. Christobel? You don’t really care 
about the Professor?” 

“Boy dear, I really do. I have cared 
about him very much, for years. ” 


The Fifth Day 


131 

‘‘Yes, as a woman loves a book; but 
not as a woman loves a man/* 

“Explain your meaning, please." 

“Oh, hang it all!" exclaimed the Boy, 
violently. “Do you love his mouth, his 
eyes, his hair — ?" The Boy choked, and 
stopped short. 

Miss Charteris considered, and replied 
with careful deliberation. “I do not know 
that I have ever seen his mouth; he wears 
a beard. His eyes are not strong, but they 
look very kind through his glasses. His 
hair? Well, really, he has not much to 
speak of. But all these things matter very 
little. His mind is great and beautiful; 
his thoughts appeal to me. I understand 
his way of viewing things; he understands 
mine. It would be a wonderful privilege 
to be able to make life easy and happy for 
one for whom I have so profound a respect 
and esteem. I have looked upon it, during 
the last few years, as a privilege which is, 
eventually, to be mine.’* 

“Christobel, ** cried the Boy, “it is 


132 Under the Mulberry Tree 

wrong, it is terrible! It is not the highest. 
I can’t stand it, and I won’t. I will not 
let you give yourself to a wizened old 
bookworm ” 

‘‘Be quiet. Boy,” she said, sharply. 
‘‘Do you wish to make me really angry? 
The Professor is not old. He is only four- 
teen years my senior. To your extreme 
youth, fifty may seem old. The Professor 
is in his prime. I am afraid we have 
nothing to gain. Boy, by prolonging this 
discussion.” 

‘‘But we can’t leave it at this,” said 
the Boy, desperately. ‘‘Where do I come 
in?” 

‘‘My Little Boy Blue, I am afraid you 
don’t come in at all, excepting as a very 
sweet idyl which, all through the years to 
come, I shall never forget. You begged 
for your seven days, and I gave them. But 
I never led you to assume I could say ‘ Yes. ’ 
Now listen, Boy, and I will tell you the 
honest truth. I do not know that I am 
ever going to marry the Professor. I only 


133 


The Fifth Day 

feel pledged to him from the vague belief 
that we each consider the other is waiting. 
Don’t break your heart over it, Boy; be- 
cause it is more than likely it will never come 
to pass. But — even were there no Professor 
— oh, Boy dear, I could not marry you. 
I love my Little Boy Blue more tenderly 
and deeply than I have ever before loved 
anything or anyone on this earth. But I 
could not marry a boy, however dearly I 
loved him; however sweet was his love to 
me. I am a woman grown, and I could 
sun-ender myself wholly only to a man who 
would wholly be my mate and master. 
I cannot pretend to call my Little Boy 
Blue ' the man I love, ’ because he is really 
dearest to me when I think of him, with 
expectation in his baby-eyes, trotting down 
the sands to find his cannon-ball. . . . 
Oh, Boy, I am hurting you! I hate to 
hurt you. Boy. Your love is so beautiful. 
Nothing as perfect will ever touch my life 
again. Yet I cannot, honestly, give what 
you ask. . . . Boy dear, ought I to have 


134 Under the Mulberry Tree 


told you, quite plainly, sooner? If so, 
you must forgive me/' 

The Boy had risen, and stood before her. 
'‘You always do the right thing," he said, 
“and never, under any circumstances, could 
there be anything for me to forgive you. 
I have been an egregious young ass. I 
have taken things for granted all along the 
line. What must you think of me! Why 
should you care? You, with your intellect- 
ual attainments, your honours, your high 
standing in the world of books? Why 
should you care, Christobel? Why should 
you care?" 

He stood before her, straight and tall 
and desperately implacable. The exuber- 
ant youth had died out of his face. For 
the first time, she could not see in him 
her Little Boy Blue. 

“Why should you care?" he said again. 

She rose and faced him. “But I do 
care. Boy," she said. “How dare you 
pretend to think I don't? I care very 
tenderly and deeply." 


The Fifth Day 


135 


“Pooh!” said the Boy. “Do you sup- 
pose I wished you to marry a bare- toed 
baby, with sand on its nose?” He laughed 
wildly; paused and looked at her, then 
laughed again. “A silly little ass that said 
it did n’t like girls? Oh, I say I I think it ’s 
about time I was olf. Will you walk down 
to the gate? . . . Thanks. You are al- 
ways most awfully good to me. I say, 
Miss Charteris, may I ask the Professor’s 
name?” 

“Harvey,” she said, quietly. “Kenrick 
Harvey.” The dull anguish at her heart 
seemed almost more than she could bear. 
Yet what could she say or do? He was 
merely accepting her own decision. 

“Harvey?” he said. “Why of course I 
know him. He ’s not much to look at, is 
he? But we always thought him an awfully 
good sort, and kind as they make ’em. 
We considered him a confirmed bachelor; 
but — well, we did n’t know he was wait- 
ing.” 

They had reached the postern gate. 


136 Under the Mulberry Tree 


Oh, would he see the growing pain in her 
eyes? What was she losing? What had 
she lost? Why did her whole life seem 
passing out through that green gate? 

“Good-bye,’’ he said, “and please forget 
all the rot I talked about Jericho. It goes 
with the spade and bucket, and all the rest. 
You have been most awfully kind to me, 
all along. But the very kindest thing you 
can do now, is to forget all the impossible 
things I thought and said. . . . Allow 
me . . . I ’ll shut the door. ” 

He put up his hand, to lift his cap; but 
he was bareheaded. He laughed again; 
turned, and passed out. 

“Boy! Boy! Come back,” said Christo- 
bel. But the door had closed on the first 
word. 

She stood alone. 

This time she did not wait. Where was 
the good of waiting? 

She turned and walked slowly up the 
lawn, pausing to look at the flowers in the 
border. The yellow roses still looked 


The Fifth Day 


137 


golden. The jolly little “what-d’-you-call- 
’ems’’ lifted pale purple faces to the sky. 

But the Boy was gone. 

She reached her chair, where he had 
placed it, deep in the shade of the mulberry 
tree. She felt tired; worn-out; old. 

The Boy was gone. 

She leaned back with closed eyes. She 
had hurt him so. She remembered all the 
glad, sweet, confident things he had said 
each day. Now she had hurt him so. . . . 
What radiant faith, in love and in life, had 
been his. But she had spoiled that faith, 
and dimmed that brightness. 

Suddenly she remembered his dead 
mother’s prayer for him. ''I have prayed 
for thee^ that thy faith fail not. ” And under 
those words she had written '' Christohel.'' 
Would he want to obliterate that name? 
No, she knew he would not. Nothing 
approaching a hard or a bitter thought 
could ever find place in his heart. It would 
always be the golden heart of her Little 
Boy Blue. 


138 Under the Mulberry Tree 


Tears forced their way beneath her 
closed lashes, and rolled slowly down her 
cheeks. 

“Oh, Boy dear,” she said aloud, “I love 
you so — I love you so!” 

“I know you do, dear,” he said. “It ’s 
almost unbelievable — yet I know you do.” 

She opened her eyes. The Boy had 
come back. She had not heard his light 
step, on the springy turf. He knelt in his 
favourite place, on the left of her chair, 
and bent over her. Once more his face 
was radiant. His faith had not failed. 

She looked up into his shining eyes, and 
the joy in her own heart made her dizzy. 

“Boy dear,” she whispered, “not my 
lips, because — I am not altogether yours 
— I may have to — you know?^ — the Pro- 
fessor. But, oh Boy, I can’t help it! 
I ’m afraid I care terribly.” 

He was quite silent ; yet it seemed to her 
that he had shouted. A burst of trumpet- 
triumph seemed to fill the air. 

He bent lower. “Of course I would n’t, 


139 


The Fifth Day 

Christ obel,” he said; '‘not before the 
seventh day. But there *s a lot beside 
lips, and it 's all so dear.” 

Then she felt the Boy's kisses on her hair, 
on her brow, on her eyes. "Dear eyes,” 
he said, "shedding tears for my pain. Ah, 
dear eyes!” And he kissed them again. 

She put up her hand, to push him gently 
away. He captured it, and held it to his 
lips. 

"Stop, Boy dear,” she said. "Be good 
now, and sit down.” 

He slipped to the grass at her feet, and 
rested his head against her knee. 

She stroked his hair, with gentle, tender 
touch. Her Little Boy Blue had come back 
to her. Oh, bliss unutterable ! Why worry 
about the future? 

"How silly we were, dear!” he said. 
"How silly to suppose we could part like 
that — ^you and I ! ” Then his sudden merry 
laugh rang out — oh, such music! such sweet 
music! "I say, Christobel,” he said, "it 
is all very well now to say ' Stop, and be 


140 Under the Mulberry Tree 

good.’ But on the seventh day, when the 
walls fall down, and I march up into the 
citadel, I shall give you millions of kisses — 
or will it be hillionsl'' 

“Judging from my knowledge of you, 
Boy dear,” she said, ‘T rather think it 
would be billions.” 

Later, as they stood once more by the 
postern gate, he turned, framed in the 
doorway, smiling a last gay good-bye. 

It was their second parting that day, 
and how different from the first. There was 
to be a third, unlike either, before the day 
was over; but its approach was, as yet, 
unsuspected. 

But as he stood in the doorway, full in a 
shaft of sunlight, the glad certainty in his 
eyes smote her with sudden apprehension. 

”0h. Boy dear,” she said, “take care! 
You are building castles again. They will 
tumble about our ears. I have n’t pro- 
mised you anything. Little Boy Blue of mine ; 
and I am afraid I shall have to marry the 
Professor.” 


The Fifth Day 


141 

*Tf you do, dear,*’ he said, “I shall have 
to give him a new umbrella as a wedding 
present!’’ And the Boy went whistling 
down the lane. 

But, out of sight of the postern gate and 
of the woman who, leaning against it, 
watched him to the turning, he dropped 
his bounding step and jaunty bearing. 
His face grew set and anxious; his walk, 
perplexed. 

“Oh, God,” said the Boy, as he walked, 
“don’t let me lose her!” 

A few minutes later, a telegram was put 
into his hand from the friend left on the 
coast, in charge of his newest aeroplane. 

Arrange channel flight, if possible, day 
after to-morrow, 

“Not I,” said the Boy, crumpling the 
message into his pocket. “The day after 
to-morrow is the seventh day.” 


He was dining with friends, but an un- 
accountable restlessness seized him during 


142 Under the Mulberry Tree 


the evening. He made his excuses, and 
returned to the Bull Hotel soon after nine 
o’clock. The hall-porter at once handed 
him a note, left by special messenger, ten 
minutes earlier. It was marked “urgent.” 
The handwriting was Christobel’s. 

The Boy flung away his cigarette, tore 
the note open, and turned to a light. It 
was very short and clear. 

Boy dear, 

1 must see you at once. You will 
find me in the garden. 

Christobel. 

When the Boy had turned the comer 
and disappeared, Miss Charteris passed 
through the little postern gate, and moved 
slowly up the lawn. Ah, how different 
to her sad return from that gate an hour 
before ! 

The William Allen Richardsons still 
opened their golden hearts to the sunset. 
The jolly little ‘‘what-d’-you-call-’ems” 
still lifted their purple faces to the sky. 


The Fifth Day 


143 


But instead of stabbing her with agony, 
they sang a fragrant psalm of love. 

Ah, why was the Boy so dear? Why was 
the Boy so near? She had watched him go 
striding down the lane, yet he still walked 
beside her; his gay young laugh of glad 
content was in her ears; his pure young 
kisses on her brow and eyes; his head 
against her knee. 

Just as she reached the mulberry, Jen- 
kins hastened from the house. The note 
he brought, in a familiar handwriting, thin 
and pointed, was marked “urgent” in one 
corner, and “immediate” in the other; but 
Miss Ann’s notes usually were one or 
other. This happened to be both. 

“You need not wait, Jenkins,” she said. 

She stood close to a spreading branch of 
the mulberry. Her tall head was up among 
the moving leaves. Whispering, they 
caressed her. Something withheld her from 
entering the soft shade, sacred to herself 
and the Boy. She stood, to read Ann 
Harvey’s letter. 


144 Under the Mulberry Tree 

As she read, every vestige of colour left 
her face. Bending over the letter, she 
might have been a sorely troubled and per- 
plexed replica of the noble Venus of Milo. 

Folding the letter, she went slowly up the 
lawn, still wearing that white look of cold 
dismay. She spoke to Martha through the 
open window, keeping her face out of sight. 

“Martha,"’ she said, “I am obliged to go 
immediately to Miss Ann. If I am not 
back by eight o’clock, I shall be remaining 
with her for dinner.’’ She passed on, and 
Martha turned to Jenkins. 

By the way, Jenkins was having an 
unusually festive time. During the last 
twenty-four hours, Martha had been kinder 
to him than he had ever known her to be. 
He was now comfortably ensconced in the 
Windsor arm-chair in a corner of the 
kitchen, reading yesterday’s daily paper, 
and enjoying his pipe. Never before had 
his pipe been allowed in the kitchen; but 
he had just been graciously told he might 
bring it in, if he would n’t be “messy with 


The Fifth Day 


145 


the hashes'*; Mrs. Jenkins volunteering the 
additional remarkable information, that it 
was ^‘good for the beetles/’ Jenkins was 
doubtful as to whether this meant that his 
pipe gave pleasure to the beetles, or the 
reverse; but experience had taught him 
that a condition of peaceful uncertainty in 
his own mind, was to be preferred to a 
torrent of vituperative explanation from 
Martha. He therefore also received in 
silence the apparently unnecessary in- 
junction not to go '‘crawlin’ about all over 
the floor;” it took “a figure to do that!” 

Eight o’clock came, and Miss Charteris 
had not returned. 

"Remaining with ’er for dinner,” pro- 
nounced Martha, flinging open the oven, 
and wrathfully relegating to the larder the 
chicken she had been roasting with ex- 
treme care; "an’ a precious poor dinner it 
’ll be! Jenkins, you may ’ave this sparrow- 
grass. I ’ave n’t the ’eart. An’ me 'oping 
she ’d 'ave ’ad the sense to keep Hm to 
dinner; knowing as there was a chicking 


146 Under the Mulberry Tree 

an’ ’grass for two. Now what ’s took Miss 
Hann ‘urgent and immediate,’ I ’d like to 
know!” continued Martha, deriving con- 
siderable comfort from banging the plates 
and tumblers on to the kitchen table, with 
just as much violence as was consistent 
with their personal safety, as she walked 
round it, laying the table for supper. “Ate 
a biscuit, I should think, an’ flown to ’er 
chest. I’ ve no patience ; no, that I ’ave n’t 1 ” 
And Martha attacked the loaf, with fury. 

At a quarter before nine. Miss Charteris 
returned. In a few moments the bell sum- 
moned Jenkins. The note he was to take, 
was also marked “Immediate.” He left it 
on the kitchen table and, while he changed 
his coat, Martha fetched her glasses. Then 
she followed him to the pantry. 

‘ ‘ ’Ere, run man 1 ’ ’ she said, ‘ ‘ run 1 Never 
mind your muffler. Who wants a muffler 
in June? ’£ ’s in it! It ’s something more 
than a biscuit. Drat that woman ! ” 

A quarter of an hour later, a tall white 


147 


The Fifth Day 

figure moved noiselessly down the lawn, 
to the seats beneath the mulberry. The 
full moon was just rising above the high red 
wall, gliding up among the trees, huge and 
golden through their branches. Christobel 
Charteris waited in the garden for the Boy. 

He came. 

By then, the lawn was bathed in moon- 
light. She saw him, tall and slim, in the 
conventional black and white of a man's 
evening dress, pass silent through the 
postern gate. She noted that he did not 
bang it. He came up the lawn slowly — ^for 
him. He wore no hat, and every clear-cut 
feature of the clean-shaven young face 
showed up in the moonlight. 

At the mulberry, he paused, uncertain; 
peering into the dark shadow. 

‘'Christo^^/?" he said, softly. 

“Boy dear; I am here. Come. " 

He came; feeling his way among the 
chairs, and moving aside a table, which 
stood between. 

He found her, sitting where he had found 


148 Under the Mulberry Tree 


her, on his return, three hours before. A 
single ray of moonlight pierced the thick 
foliage of the mulberry, and fell across her 
face. He marked its unusual pallor. He 
stood before her, put one hand on each 
arm of her chair, and bent over her. 

“What is it? “ he said, softly. “What is 
it, dear heart? It is so wonderful to be 
wanted, and sent for. But let me know 
quickly that you are not in any trouble.*' 

She looked up at him dumbly, during 
five, ten, twenty seconds. Then she said: 
“Boy, I have something to tell you. Will 
you help me to tell it?" 

“Of course I will," he said. “How can 
I help best?" 

“I don't know," she answered. “Oh, I 
don't know!" 

He considered a moment. Then he sat 
down on the grass at her feet, and leaned his 
head against her knees. She passed her 
fingers softly through his hair. 

“What happened after I had gone?" 
asked the Boy. 


149 


The Fifth Day 

“Jenkins brought me a note from Miss 
Harvey, asking me to come to her at once, 
to hear some very wonderful news, in- 
timately affecting herself, and the Professor, 
and — ^and me. She wrote very ecstatically 
and excitedly, poor dear. She always does. 
Of course, I went.'’ 

“Well?” said the Boy, gently. The 
pause was so very long, that it seemed to 
require supplementing. He felt for the 
other hand, which had been holding the 
lace at her breast, and drew it to his lips. 
It was wet with tears. 

The Boy started. He sat up; turned, 
resting his arm upon her lap, and tried to 
see her face. 

“Go on, dear,” he said. “Get it over.” 

“Boy,” said Miss Charteris, “a rich 
old uncle of the Harveys has died, leaving 
the Professor a very considerable legacy, 
sufficient to make him quite independent of 
his fellowship, and of the production of the 
Encyclopedia.” 

“Well?” 


150 Under the Mulberry Tree 


^^They are very happy about it, natu- 
urally. Poor Ann is happier than I have 
ever seen her. And the chief cause of their 
joy appears to be that now the Professor is, 
at last, in a position to marry.’' 

‘‘Well?” 

“I have not seen him yet, but Miss Ann 
is full of it. She told me a good many very 
touching things. I had no idea it had 
meant so much — to him — all these years. 
— Boy dear?” 

“Yes.” ' 

“I shall have to marry the Professor.” 

No answer. 

“I don’t know how to make you un- 
derstand why I feel so bound to them. 
They were very old friends of my father and 
mother. They were so good to me through 
all the days of sorrow, when I was left alone. 
Miss Ann is a great invalid, and very de- 
pendent upon love and care, and upon 
not being thwarted in her little hopes 
and plans. She expects to come and live 
in — ^in her brother’s home. She knows I 


The Fifth Day 


151 

should love to have her. And he has done 
so much for me, intellectually; so patiently 
kept my mind alive, when it was inclined to 
stagnate; and working, when it would have 
grown slack. He has given up hours of 
his valuable time to me, every week, for 
years.” 

No answer. 

Suddenly the moonlight, through an 
opening in the mulberry leaves, fell upon 
his upturned face. She saw the anguish 
in his eyes. She turned his head away; 
resting it against her knee, and clasped 
her hands upon it. 

‘'Boy dear; it is terribly hard for us, I 
know. In a most extraordinary way — 
in a way I cannot understand — you have 
won my body. It yearns to be with you; 
it aches if you suffer; it lives in your glad- 
ness; it grows young in your youth. No- 
body else has ever made me feel this; I 
do not suppose anybody else ever will. 
But — oh Boy— bodies are not everything. 
Bodies are the least of all. And I think 


152 Under the Mulberry Tree 

— I think the Professor holds my mind. 
He won it long ago. I have grown much 
older since then, and very tired of waiting. 
But I can look back to the time when I 
used to think the greatest privilege in the 
world would be, to be the— to marry the 
Professor. '' 

She paused, and waited. 

'‘Bodies count,” said the Boy, in a low 
voice. "You ’ll jolly well find, that bodies 
count. ” 

It was such a relief to hear him speak 
at last. 

"Oh, I know. Boy dear,” she said. 
"But more between some, than others. 
The Professor and I are united, primarily, 
on the mental and spiritual plane. Being 
so sure of this, realising the difference, 
makes it less hard, in a way, to — ^to give 
up my Little Boy Blue. Boy dear, you 
must help me; because I love you as I have 
never loved anybody else in this world 
before; as I know I never shall love again. 
But I am bound in honour not to disap- 


The Fifth Day 


153 


point the man who knows I have waited 
for him. Miss Ann admitted to me to- 
night that she has told him. She said, 
in the first moments of joy she had to tell 
him; he was so anxious; and so diffident. 
Boy dear, had it not been for that, I think 
I should have begged off. But — as he 
knows — as they have trusted me — dear, we 
must say ‘good-bye' to-night. He is going 
to write to me to-morrow, asking if he 
may come. I shall say: ‘Yes’ . . . Boy 
dear? Is it very hard? . . . Oh, can’t 
you see where duty comes in? There can 
be no true happiness if one has failed to be 
true to what one knows is just and right. 
. . . Can’t you realise. Boy, that they 
have been ever3rthing to me for seven 
years} You have come in, for seven days.'' 

“Time is nothing,” said the Boy, sud- 
denly. “You and I are one, Christobel; 
eternally, indissolubly one. You will find 
it out, when it is too late. Age is nothing ! 
Time is nothing! Love is all!” 

She hesitated. The Boy’s theories were 


154 Under the Mulberry Tree 

so vital, so vigorous, so assured. Was she 
making a mistake? There was no question 
as to the pain involved by her decision; 
but was that pain to result, as she believed, 
in higher good to all; or was it to mean 
irreparable loss? The very knowledge that 
her body so yearned for him, led her to 
emphasise the fact that the Boy could not — 
oh surely could not — ^be a fit mate for her 
mind. Yet he was so confident, so sure 
of himself, in regard to her, on every point ; 
so unhesitatingly certain that they were 
meant for each other. 

And then she saw Ann Harvey, with 
clasped hands, saying: ''Darling Child, 
forgive me, but I had to tell Kenrick! He 
is so humble — ^he was so diffident, so doubt- 
ful of his own powers of attraction. I 
had to tell him that I knew you had been 
very fond of him for years, I did not say 
much, sweet Child; but just enough to 
give dear Kenrick hope and confidence.'' 

She could see Miss Ann^s delicate wrin- 
kled face; the tearful eyes; the lavender 


The Fifth Day 


155 


ribbons on her lace cap; the mysterious 
hair-brooch, fastening the old lace at her 
neck. The scene was photographed upon 
her memory; for, in that moment, Hope — 
the young Hope, bom of the youthful 
Boy and his desires — ^had died. Christ obel 
Charteris had taken up the burden of life; 
a life apart from the seven days’ romance, 
created by the amazing over-confidence 
of her Little Boy Blue. 

The masterful man attracts; but, in the 
end, it is usually the diffident man who 
wins. The innate unselfishness of the no- 
blest type of woman, causes her to yield 
more readily to the insistence of her pity 
than to the force of her desire. In these 
cases, marriage and martyrdom are really 
— ^though unconsciously— synonymous; and 
the same pure, holy courage which went 
smiling to the stake, goes smiling to the 
altar. Does a martyr’s crown await it, in 
another world? Possibly. The only per- 
plexing question, in these cases, being : What 
awaits the wrecked life of the ‘ ‘ other man ’ ’ ? 


156 Under the Mulberry Tree 

Christobel Charteris had put her hand 
to the plough; she would not look back. 

''Little Boy Blue/' she said, "you must 
say 'good-bye' and go. I am going to 
marry the Professor quite soon, and I must 
not see you again. Say 'good-bye,' Boy 
dear. " 

Then the Boy's anguish broke through 
all bounds. He flung his arms around 
her, and hid his face in her lap. A sudden 
throb of speechless agony seemed to over- 
whelm them both, submerging all argu- 
ments, all casuistry, all obligations to 
others, in a molten ocean of love and 
pain. 

Then she heard the Boy pray: "O God, 
give her to me! Give her to me! O God, 
give her to me!" 

"Hush, Boy," she said; "oh, hush!" 

He was silent at once. 

Then bending, she gathered him to her, 
holding his face against her breast; shel- 
tering him in the tenderness of her arms. 
He had never seemed so completely her 


The Fifth Day 


157 


own Little Boy Blue as in that moment, 
when she listened to his hopeless prayer: 
‘'O God, give her to me!'* This was the 
Little Boy Blue who tried to carry cannon- 
balls; who faced the world, with sand upon 
his nose; cloudless faith in his bright eyes; 
indomitable courage in his heart. She 
forgot the man's estate to which he had 
attained; she forgot the man's request to 
which she had given a final denial. She 
held him as she had first longed to do, 
when his nurse, in unreasonable wrath, 
shook him on the sands; she rocked him 
gently to and fro, as his dead mother might 
have done, long years ago. ''Oh, my 
Little Boy Blue, my Little Boy Blue!" 
she said. 

Suddenly she felt the Boy's hot tears 
upon her neck. 

Then, in undreamed of pain, her heart 
stood still. Then the full passion of her 
tenderness awoke, and found voice in an 
exceeding bitter cry. 

"Oh, I cannot bear it! I cannot bear 


158 Under the Mulberry Tree 


it! Boy dear, oh, Boy dear, you shall 
have all you wish — all — all! . . . Do 
you hear, my Little Boy Blue? It shall 
all be for you, darling; all for you! No- 
body else matters. You shall have all 
you want — all^ — all — all!” 

Silence under the mulberry tree ; the 
silence of a great decision. 

Then he drew himself gently but firmly 
from her arms. 

He stood before her, tall, erect, un- 
bending. The moonlight fell upon his 
face. It had lost its look of youth, taking 
on a new power. It was the face of a 
man; and of a man who, having. come to a 
decision, intended, at all costs, to abide 
by it. 

“No, Christobel, ” he said. “No, my 
Beloved. I could not accept happiness 
— even such happiness — at so great a cost 
to you. There could be no bliss for you, 
no peace, no satisfaction, even in our great 
love, if you had gone against your supreme 
sense of duty; your own high conception 


The Fifth Day 


159 


of right and wrong. Also, Christobel, 
dearest — ^you must not give yourself in a 
rush of emotion. You must give yourself 
deliberately where your mind has chosen, 
and where your great soul is content. 
That being so, I must be off, Christobel; 
and don’t you worry about me. You ’ve 
been heavenly good to rne, dear; and I ’ve 
put you through so much. I will go up 
to town to-night. I shall not come back, 
unless you send for me. But when you 
want me and send — ^why, my Love, I will 
come from the other end of the world. ” 

He stooped and took both her hands 
in his; lifted them reverently, tenderly, 
to his lips; held them there one moment, 
then laid them back upon her lap, and 
turned away. 

She saw him walk down the moonlit 
lawn, tall and erect. She saw him pass 
through the gate, without looking back. 
She heard it close quietly — not with the 
old boyish bang — ^yet close irrevocably, 
decisively. 


i6o Under the Mulberry Tree 


Then she shut her eyes, and began again 
to rock gently to and fro. Little Boy 
Blue was still in her arms; it comforted 
her to rock him there. But the man who 
had arisen and left her, when he might, 
taking advantage of her weakness, have 
won her against her own conscience and 
will; the man who, mastering his own 
agony, had thus been brave and strong for 
her — ^had carried her whole heart with him, 
when he went out through the postern gate. 

In rising, he left the Boy in her arms. 
Through the long hard years to come, she 
prayed she might keep him there — ^her 
own Little Boy Blue. 

But he who went out alone, for her sake 
to face life without her, was the man she 
loved. 

She knew it, at last. 


And the evening and the morning were the 
fifth day.'* 


THE SIXTH DAY 
Miss Ann Has “Much to Say” 


i6i 



























THE SIXTH DAY 


MISS ANN HAS “MUCH TO SAY” 

the afternoon of the sixth 
day, at the hour which had 
hitherto been kept for the 
Boy, Christobel Charteris, in 
response to another urgent and immediate 
summons, went to take tea with Miss Ann. 

It had been a long, dull, uneventful day, 
holding at first a certain amount of restless 
uncertainty as to whether the Boy was 
really gone ; mingled with apprehensive 
anticipation of a call from the Professor. 

But before noon a reply-paid telegram 
arrived from the Boy, sent off at Charing- 
Cross. 

Good morning. All 's well. Just off for 
Folkestone. Please tell me how you are. 

163 




i 64 Under the Mulberry Tree 


To which, while Jenkins and the tele- 
graph-boy waited, Miss Charteris replied: 

Quite welly thank you,* Do he careful at 
Folkestone 

and afterwards thought of many other 
messages which she might have sent, 
holding more, and better expressed. But 
that precious moment in touch with the 
Boy passed so quickly; and it seemed 
so impossible to think of anything bu 
commonplace words, while Jenkins stood 
at attention near the table; and the tele- 
graph-boy kept ringing his bicycle-bell 
outside, as a reminder that he waited. 

Yet her heart felt warmed and comforted 
by this momentary contact with the Boy. 
He still cared to know how she was. And 
it was so like him to put: '‘All’s well.” 
He wished her to know he had not gone 
down beneath his trouble. ‘‘Fanks, but I 
always does my own cawwying.” Brave 
Little Boy Blue, of long ago! 

The expectation of the Professor’s note 


The Sixth Day 


165 

or call remained, keeping her anxious; 
until she heard from Ann Harvey, that 
her brother had been obliged to go to Lon- 
don on business, and would not return until 
the evening. “Come to tea with me, dear 
Child,” the note concluded; “we have 
much to say!” 

It seemed to Christobel that there re- 
mained nothing which Miss Ann had not 
already said, in every possible form and 
way. Nevertheless, she put on her hat, 
and went. Miss Ann had succeeded in 
impressing all her friends with the con- 
viction that her wishes must never be 
thwarted. 

Miss Ann had named her villa “Shiloh,” 
undoubtedly a suitable name, so far as she 
herself was concerned ; her time being mostly 
spent upon a comfortable sofa in her tiny 
drawing-room; or reclining on a wicker 
lounge beneath the one tree in her small 
garden; or being carefully wheeled out in a 
bath-chair. 

But nobody else found Miss Ann's villa 


i66 Under the Mulberry Tree 


in any sense a ‘'resting-place.*' She had 
a way of keeping everybody about her — 
from jaded Emma to the most casual caller 
— on the move; while she herself presented 
a delicate picture of frail inactivity. Im- 
mediately upon their arrival, her friends 
found an appointed task awaiting them; 
but it was always something which Miss 
Ann would have given to somebody else 
to do, had they not chanced at that moment 
to appear; and they were usually left with 
the feeling that the particular somebody 
else^ — ^whose privilege they, in their well- 
meant zeal, had usurped — ^would have ac- 
complished it better. 

Directing them from the sofa. Miss Ann 
kept her entourage busy and perpetually 
on the move. Yet she never felt she was 
asking much of them; nor, however weary 
at the conclusion of the task, did they ever 
feel much had been accomplished, owing 
to the judicious use of the word “just.’* 

“My dear,** Miss Ann would say, “as 
you are here, will you just clean the ca- 


The Sixth Day 


167 


nary.” Cleaning the canary meant a very 
thorough turning out of an intricate little 
brass cage; several journeys up and down 
stairs in quest of sand, seed, and brass 
polish, and an out-door excursion to a 
neighbour’s garden for groundsel. The 
canary’s name was “ Sweetie-weet, ” and, 
however much annoyed Miss Ann’s friends 
might be feeling with the canary, they had 
to call him '‘Sweetie-weet” all the time 
they '‘cleaned him,” lest his flutterings 
should upset Miss Ann. Now you cannot 
say "Sweetie-weet” in an angry voice. 
Try, and you will see. Consequently Miss 
Ann’s friends had no vent for their feelings 
during the process of getting a rather large 
hand in and out of a very small brass door 
with a spring, which always snapped to, at 
the wrong moment, while the hand, which 
seemed to its possessor larger than it had 
ever seemed before, was crooked round in 
an impossible position in a strained attempt 
to fix Sweetie-weet’s perches. If anything 
went wrong during the cleaning process, 


i68 Under the Mulberry Tree 


Miss Ann, from her vantage-ground on the 
sofa would sigh, and exclaim: ^‘Poor patient 
little Sweetie-weet!^’ Miss Ann was in 
full possession of all her faculties. Her 
hearing was pretematurally sharp. It was 
no use saying: ''Fiend!’' to Sweetie-weet, 
in an emphatic whisper. He fluttered the 
more. 

When the task was completed, the cage 
had to be brought to Miss Ann’s couch for 
inspection. She then usually discovered 
the perches to have been put back before 
they were perfectly dry. Now nothing 
— ^as surely you hardly ought to require to 
be told — ^was so prejudicial to Sweetie- 
weet’s delicate constitution as to have 
damp wood beneath his precious little feet. 
Consequently all the perches had just to be 
taken out again, dried before the kitchen 
fire, and put back once more. When this 
mandate went forth, the glee in the bright 
black eyes in Sweetie-weet’s yellow head 
was unmistakable. He shared Miss Ann’s 
mania for keeping people busy. 


The Sixth Day 169 

When, at last, the second installation of 
perches was over, and the cage was sus- 
pended from the brass chain in the sunny 
window, Sweetie-weet poured forth a shrill 
crescendo of ear-piercing sarcasm — “a little 
song of praise” Miss Ann called it- — directed 
full at the hot and exhausted friend, who 
was applying a pocket-handkerchief to the 
wire scratches on the back of her hand, and 
trying to smile at Miss Ann's recital of all 
Emma would say, when she found that her 
special privilege and delight — the cleaning 
of Sweetie-weet — had been wrested from 
her by the over-zealous friend. As a matter 
of fact, jaded Emma’s personal remarks 
about Sweetie-weet, during the perch-dry- 
ing process in the kitchen, had been of a 
nature which would not bear repeating in 
Sweetie-weet’s presence, and had provided 
the only amusement the friend had got out 
of the whole performance. 

When Christobel Charteris arrived at 
Shiloh, she found Miss Ann on the green 
velvet sofa, looking very frail and ethereal; 


170 Under the Mulberry Tree 


a Shetland shawl about her shoulders, 
fastened by the largest and most mysterious 
of her hair-brooches— a gold-mounted oval 
brooch, in which a weeping willow of fair 
hair drooped over a sarcophagus of dark 
hair; while a crescent moon of grey hair 
kept watch over both. This funereal col- 
lection of family hair always possessed a 
weird fascination for small children, brought 
by their parents to call upon Miss Ann. 
The most undemonstrative became affec- 
tionate, and hastened with ready docility to 
the sofa to kiss Miss Ann, in order to ob- 
tain a closer view, and to settle the much 
disputed point as to the significance of a 
small round object in the left-hand comer 
at the bottom. In fact, to the undisguised 
dismay of his mother, a sturdy youngster 
once emerged from Miss Ann's embrace, ex- 
claiming eagerly to his little sister: ‘Tt 's 
a furze-bush, not a hedgehog ! ' ' An unfortu- 
nate remark, which might have been taken 
by Miss Ann to refer to even more personal 
matters than a detail in her brooch. 


The Sixth Day 171 

Christobel herself was not altogether free 
from the spell of this hirsute cemetery; 
chiefly because she knew it was worn on 
days when deep emotion was to be felt and 
expressed. At sight of it, she was quite 
prepared for the tearful smile with which 
Miss Ann signed to her to close the door. 
Then extending her arms: '‘Sweet sister,” 
she said, with emotion, "let me take you to 
my heart. ” 

It was somewhat startling to Christobel 
to be apostrophised as "sister” by Miss 
Ann. The Boy had made her feel so 
young, and so completely his contemporary, 
that if Miss Ann had called her "daughter, ” 
or even* "granddaughter,” it would have 
seemed more appropriate. Also her magni- 
ficent proportions constituted rather a large 
order for Miss Ann's proposed embrace. 

However, she knelt beside the sofa, and 
allowed herself to be taken to Miss Ann's 
heart in sections. Then, having found 
and restored Miss Ann's lace pocket-hand- 
kerchief, she seated herself in a low chair 


172 Under the Mulberry Tree 

beside the couch, hoping for enlightenment 
upon the immediate prospects of her own 
future. 

Miss Ann wept gently for a while. 
Christobel sat silent. Her recent experi- 
ence of tears, wrung from such deep anguish 
of soul, made it less easy for her to feel 
sympathetic towards tears which flowed 
from no apparent cause, and fell delicately 
into perfumed lace. So she waited in 
silence, while Miss Ann wept. 

The room was very still. The bang with 
which the Boy usually made his entry 
anywhere, would have been terrific in its 
joyful suddenness. At the mere thought 
of it, Christobel’s heart stood still and 
listened. But this was a place into which 
the Boy would never make an entry, noisy 
or otherwise. Besides — the Boy was gone. 
Oh, silent, sober, sorry world! The Boy 
was gone.** 

Sweetie-weet put his head on one side, 
and chirped interrogatively. He felt the 
silence had lasted sufficiently long. 


The Sixth Day 


173 


Miss Ann dried her eyes, making an 
effort to control her emotion. Then she 
spoke, in a voice which still trembled. 

‘‘Dearest Child,” she said, “I want you 
just to cover this book for me. Emma has 
offered to do it, several times; but I said: 
‘No, Emma. We must keep it for Miss 
Christobel. I do not know what she would 
say to you, if you took to covering my 
books!’ Emma is a good soul, and will- 
ing ; but has not the mind and method 
required to cover a book properly. If you 
will just run up to my room, dear Child, 
you will find a neat piece of whitey-brown 
paper laid aside on purpose. . . . Hush, 
Sweetie-weet I Christobel knows you are 
pleased to see her. ... It is either on 
the ottoman behind the screen, or in the 
top left-hand drawer of the mahogany 
chest, between the window and the fireplace. 
Ah, how much we have come through, 
during the last twenty-four hours! The 
scissors, dear Love, are hanging by black 
tape from a nail in the storeroom. You 


174 Under the Mulberry Tree 

require a large and common pair for cutting 
brown paper. How truly wonderful are 
the ways of Providence, dear Christobel! 
The paste is in the little cupboard under 
the stairs. ” 

When Miss Charteris had finished cover- 
ing the book, having bent upon it all the 
mind and method it required, she forestalled 
the setting of another task, by saying firmly: 
“I want an important talk now, please. 
Ann, are you sure you told your brother 
that I had cared for him for years? 

''Darling, dear Kenrick was so diffident; 
so unable to realise his own powers of 
attraction; so ’’ 

"Do you think it was fair toward a 
woman, even if it were true, to tell a man 
who had never asked her love, that that 
love has long been his?*’ 

"Sweet Child, how crudely you put it! 
I merely hinted^ whispered; gave the most 
delicate indications of what I knew to be 
your feeling. For you do love my brother; 
do you not, dear Christobel?** 


The Sixth Day 


175 


'T think/' said Miss Charteris, slowly, 
weighing each word; 'T think I love the 
Professor as a woman loves a book. " 

There was a moment of tense silence 
in Miss Ann's drawing-room. Christobel 
Charteris looked straight before her, a 
stern light upon her face, as of one con- 
fronted on the path of duty by the clear 
shining of the mirror of self-revelation. 

Into Miss Ann's pale blue eyes shot a 
gleam of nervous anxiety. 

Sweetie- weet chirped, interrogatively. 

Then Miss Ann, recovering, clasped her 
hands. ‘'Ah, what a beautiful definition!" 
she said. "What could be more pure, 
more perfect?" 

Miss Charteris knew a love of a very 
different kind, which was absolutely pure, 
and altogether perfect. But that was the 
love she had put from her. 

"A woman could hardly marry a book," 
she said. 

Miss Ann gave a little deprecatory 
shriek. "Darling Child!" she cried. "At? 


176 Under the Mulberry Tree 

simile, however beautiful, should be pressed 
too far! Your exquisite description of 
your love for dear Kenrick merely assures 
us that your union with him will prove 
one of complete contentment to the mind. 
And the mind — that sensitive instrument, 
attuned to all the immensities of the in- 
tellectual spheres — ^the mind is what really 
matters,'' 

“Bodies count, “ said Miss Charteris, 
with conviction; adding beneath her breath, 
the dawning of a smile in her sad eyes : “We 
shall jolly well find, bodies count.’' 

Miss Ann’s hearing, as we have already 
remarked, was pretematurally sharp. She 
started. '‘My dear Christ obel, what an 
expression! And do you not think, that, 
under these circumstances, any mention of 
bodies savours of impropriety?” 

Miss Charteris turned quickly. The 
colour flamed into her beautiful face. The 
glint of angry indignation flashed from 
her eyes. But the elderly figure on the 
couch looked so small and frail. To wound 


The Sixth Day 


177 


and crush it would be so easy; and so 
unworthy of her strength, and wider ex- 
perience. 

Suddenly she remembered a little blue 
back, round with grief and shame; a 
small sandy face, silent and unflinching; 
a brave little heart which kept its faith 
in God, and prayed on trustfully, while 
nurses misunderstood and bullied. Then 
Miss Charteris conquered her own wrath. 

“Dear Ann,** she said, gently, “do you 
really believe your brother would be much 
disappointed if — after all — ^when he asks 
me to marry him, — ^which he has not done 
yet, — I feel it better not to do so?** 

“My darling Child!’* exclaimed Miss 
Ann, and her hair-brooch flew open, as if 
to accentuate her horror and amazement. 
“My darling Child! Think how patiently 
he has waited! Remember the long years! 
Remember ** 

“Yes, I know,** said Miss Charteris. 
“You told me all that last night, did n’t 
you? But it seems to me that, if a man 


12 


178 Under the Mulberry Tree 

can wait twelve years, he might as well 
wait twenty.” 

“So he would have!” cried Miss Ann. 
“ Undoubtedly dear Kenrick would have 
waited twenty years^ had it not been for 
this fortunate legacy, which places him 
in a position to marry at once. But why 
should you wish to keep him waiting any 
longer? Is not twelve years sufficiently 
long?” 

Miss Charteris smiled. “Twelve days 
would be too long for some people,” she 
said, gently. “I have no wish to keep 
him waiting. But you must remember, 
Ann, the Professor has, as yet, spoken no 
word of love to me. ” 

“Dear Child,” said Miss Ann, eagerly; 
“he would have come to you to-day, but 
imperative legal business connected with 
his uncle's will, took him to town. I 
know for certain that he intends writing 
to you this evening; and, if you then give 
him leave to do so, he will call upon you 
tomorrow. Oh, darling girl, you will not 


The Sixth Day 


179 


disappoint us? We have so trusted you; 
so believed in you ! A less scrupulously 
honourable man than Kenrick might have 
tried to bind you by a promise, before he 
was in a position to offer you immediate 
marriage. Think of all the hopes — the 
hopes and p-plans, which depend upon 
your faithfulness!” Miss Ann dissolved 
into tears — ^but not to a degree which 
should hinder her flow of eloquence. “Ah, 
sweetest Child! You knelt beside this very 
sofa, five years ago, and you said: 'Ann, I 
think any woman might be proud to become 
the wife of the Professor!’ Have you 
forgotten that you said that, kneeling 
beside this very sofa?” 

“I have not forgotten,” said Miss Char- 
teris; “and I think so, still.” 

“Then you will marry Kenrick?” said 
Miss Ann, through her tears. 

Christobel Charteris rose. She stood, 
for a moment, tall and immovable, in the 
small, low room, crowded with knick- 
knacks — china, bric-d-brac, ferns in painted 


i8o Under the Mulberry Tree 

pots, embroidery, photograph frames — 
overseated with easy chairs, which, in 
their turn, were overfilled with a varied 
assortment of cushions. Miss Ann's 
drawing-room gave the effect of a rather 
prettily arranged bazaar. You mentally 
pictured yourself walking round, admiring 
everything, but seeing nothing you liked 
quite well enough to wish to buy it, and 
take it home. 

Christobel Charteris, tall and stately, 
in her simple white gown, looked so utterly 
apart from the trumpery elegance of these 
surroundings. As the Boy had said, the 
mellow beauty of his ancestral homes 
would indeed be a fit setting for her stately 
grace. But she had sent away the Boy, 
with his beautiful castles in the air, and 
places in the shires. The atmosphere and 
surroundings of Shiloh were those to which 
she must be willing to bend her fastidious 
taste. Miss Ann would expect to make 
her home with the Professor. 

“Then you will marry Kenrick?" whis- 


The Sixth Day i8i 

pered Miss Ann, through her lace pocket- 
handkerchief. 

Christobel bent over her, tenderly; 
fastening the clasp of the mysterious 
hair-brooch. 

‘'Dear Ann,” she said. “It will not be 
leap-year again, until 1912. And, mean- 
while, the Professor has not proposed 
marriage to me.” 

Miss Ann instantly brightened. Laugh- 
ing gaily, she wiped away a few remaining 
tears. 

“Ah, naughty!” she said. “Naughty, to 
make me tell! But as you will ask — he 
is going to write tonight. But you must 
never let him know I told you! And now 
I want you just to find the Spectator — it 
is laid over that exquisitely embroidered 
blotter on the writing-table in the window, 
sent me last Christmas by that kind crea- 
ture Lady Goldsmith; ^o thoughtful, taste- 
ful, and quite touching; Emma, careful soul, 
spread it over the blotter, while darling 
Sweetie- weet took his bath. Dear pet, it 


1 82 Under the Mulberry Tree 


is a sight to see him splash and splutter. 
Lady Goldsmith thinks so much of dear 
Kenrick. The first time she saw him, she 
was immensely struck by his extraordinarily 
clever appearance. He sat exactly op- 
posite her at a Guildhall banquet; and she 
told me afterwards that the mere sight of 
him was sufficient to take away all inclina- 
tion for food; excepting for that intellectual 
nourishment which he is so well able to 
supply. I thought that was rather well 
expressed, and, coming from di florid woman, 
such as Lady Goldsmith, was quite a tribute 
to my brother. You would call Lady 
Goldsmith ‘florid,’ would you not, dear 
Christobel? . . . Oh, you do not know her 
by sight? I am surprised. As the wife 
of the Professor, you will soon know all 
these distinguished people by sight. Yes, 
she is undoubtedly florid; and inclined to be 
what my dear father used to call ‘a woman 
of a stout habit.’ This being the case, it 
was certainly a tribute — a tribute of which 
you and I, dearest Child, have a right to feel 


The Sixth Day 183 

justly proud. . . . Oh, is it still damp? 
Naughty Sweetie-weet ! Don’t you think it 
might be wise just to take it to the kitchen. 
Emma, good soul, will let you dry it before 
the fire. I have heard of fatalities caused 
by damp newspapers. Precious child, we 
can have you run no risks! What would 
K enrich say? But when it is absolutely dry, 
I want you just to explain to me the gist 
of that article on the effect of oriental litera- 
ture on modem thought. Kenrick tells 
me you have read it. He wishes to discuss 
it with me. I really cannot undertake to 
read it through. I have not the time re- 
quired. Yet I must be prepared to talk it 
over intelligently with my brother, when 
next he pays me a visit. He may look in 
this evening, weary with his day in town, 
and requiring the relaxation of a little in- 
tellectual conversation. I must be ready.” 


An hour later, somewhat tired in body, 
and completely exhausted in mind. Miss 


1 84 Under the Mulberry Tree 


Charteris walked home. She made a de- 
tour, in order to pass along the lane, and 
enter by the postern gate at the bottom of 
the garden. 

She opened it, and passed in. 

A shaft of sunlight lay along the lawn. 
The jolly little “ what-d’-you-call- ’ems ” 
lifted gay purple faces to the sky. 

She paused in the doorway, trying to 
realise how this quiet green seclusion, the 
old-fashioned flower-borders, the spreading 
mulberry tree, the quaint white house, in 
the distance, with its green shutters, must 
have looked to the Boy each day, as he came 
in. She knew he had more eye for colour, 
and more knowledge of artistic effect, than 
his casual acquaintances might suppose.# f 
It would not surprise her some day to find, 
as one of the gems of the New Gallery, a 
reproduction of her own garden, with a 
halo of jolly little “what-d’-you-call-'ems” 
in the borders, and an indication of seats, 
deep in the shadow of the mulberry tree. 
She would not need to refer to the catalogue 


The Sixth Day 


185 


for the artist’s name. The Boy had had a 
painting in the Academy the year before. 
She had chanced to see it. Noticing the 
name of her Little Boy Blue of the Dover- 
court sands in the catalogue, she had made 
her way through the crowded rooms, and 
found his picture. It hung on the line. She 
had been struck by its thoughtful beauty, 
and wealth of imaginative skill. She had not 
forgotten that picture; and during all these 
days she had been quietly waiting to hear 
the Boy say he had had a painting in the 
Academy. Then she was going to tell 
him she had seen it, had greatly admired 
it, and had noted with pleasure all the 
kind things critics had said of it. 

But, the subject of pictures not having 
come up, it had not occurred to the Boy to 
mention it. The Boy never talked of what 
he had done, because he had done it. But 
were a subject mentioned upon which he 
was keen, he would bound up, with shi- 
ning eyes, and tell you all he knew about 
it; all he had seen, heard, and done; all he 


i86 Under the Mulberry Tree 


was doing, and all he hoped to do in the 
future, in connection with that particular 
thing. He would never have thought of 
informing you that he owned three aero- 
planes. But if the subject of aviation came 
up, and you said to the Boy: ‘‘Do you 
know anything about it?’’ he would lean 
forward, beaming at you, and say: “I 
should jolly well think I do!” and talk 
aeroplanes to you for as long as you were 
willing to listen. This trait of the Boy’s, 
caused shallow-minded people to consider 
him conceited. But the woman he loved 
knew how to distinguish between keenness 
and conceit; between exuberant enthusiasm, 
and egotistical self-assertion; and the wo- 
man who loved him, smiled tenderly as 
she remembered that even on the day when 
she scolded him, and he had to admit his 
“barely respectable B. A.,” he had not 
told her of the picture hung on the line 
and mentioned in the Times, Yet if the 
question of art had come up, the Boy 
would very probably have sat forward in 


The Sixth Day 


187 

his chair, and talked about his picture, 
straight on end, for half an hour. 

She still stood beneath the archway, 
in the red-brick wall, as these thoughts 
chased quickly through her mind. She 
would have made a fair picture for anyone 
who had chanced to be waiting beneath 
the mulberry tree, with eyes upon the gate. 

'‘Straight on end for half an hour, he 
would have talked about his picture; and 
how bright his eyes would have been. 
And then I should have said: T saw it, 
Boy dear; and it was quite as beautiful as 
you say.’ And he would have answered: 
Tt jolly well gave you the feeling of the 
scene, did n’t it Christo^^/?’ And I should 
have known that his delight in it, as an 
artistic success, had nothing to do with the 
fact that it was painted by himself. Just 
because egotism is impossible to him, he is 
free to be so full of vivid enthusiasm.” 

She smiled again. A warm glow seemed 
to enfold her. "How well I know my 
Boy!” she said aloud; then remembered with 


i88 Under the Mulberry Tree 

a sudden pang that she must not call him 
her Boy. She had let him go. She was — 
very probably — agoing to marry the Pro- 
fessor. She had not — with the whole of her 
being — ^wanted him to stay, until he had 
had the manliness to rise up and go. 
Then — ^it had been too late. Ah, was it 
too late? If the Boy came back to plead 
once more? If once again she could 
hear him say: “Age is nothing! Time is 
nothing! Love is all!” would she not 
answer : “Yes, Guy. Love is all . ” ? 

The blood rushed into her sweet proud 
face. The name of the man she loved 
had come into her mind unconsciously. 
It had never yet — as a name for him — 
passed her lips. That she should uncon- 
sciously call him so in her heart, gave her 
another swift moment of self -revelation. 

She closed the gate gently, careful not 
to let it bang. As she passed up the lawn, 
her heart stood still. It seemed to her that 
he must be waiting, in the shade of the 
mulberry tree. 


The Sixth Day 189 

She hardly dared to look. She felt so 
sure he was there. . . . Yes, she knew he 
was there. . . . She felt certain the Boy 
had come back. He could not stay away 
from her on his sixth day. Had he not 
said he would '‘march round’' every day? 
Ah, dear waiting army of Israel! Here was 
Jericho hastening to meet it. Why had 
she allowed Ann Harvey to keep her so late? 
Why had sl^e gone at all during the Boy’s 
own time? * She might have known he 
would come. . . . Should she walk past 
the mulberry-, as if making for the house; 
just for the joy of heanng him call "Chris- 
tobel!''? No, that would not be quite hon- 
est, knowing he was there; and they were 
always absolutely honest with one another. 

She passed, breathlessly, under the 
drooping branches. Her cheeks glowed ; 
her lips were parted. Her eyes shone with 
love and expectation. 

She lifted a hanging bough, and passed 
beneath. 

His chair was there, and hers; but they 


190 Under the Mulberry Tree 

were empty. The Boy — ^being the Boy — 
had not come back. 

Presently she went slowly up to the 
house. 

A telegram lay on the hall table. She 
knew at once from whom it came. There 
was but one person who carried on a cor- 
respondence by telegraph. Reply paid was 
written on the envelope. 

She stood quite still for a moment. Then 
she opened it slowly. Telegrams from the 
Boy gave her a delicious memory of the way 
he used to jump about. He would be out 
of his chair, and sitting at her feet, before 
she knew he was going to move. 

She opened it slowly, turned to a win- 
dow, and read it. 

How are you, dear? Please tell me. I am 
going to do my hig fly tomorrow. I jolly well 
mean to break the record. Wish me luck. 

She took up the reply-paid form and 
wrote: 


The Sixth Day 


191 

Quite well. Good luck; hut please he 
careful, Little Boy Blue. 

She hesitated a moment, before writing 
the playful name by which she so often 
called him. But his telegram was so 
absolutely the Boy, all over. It was best 
he should know nothing of ‘The man she 
loved,’’ who had gone out at the gate. It 
was best he^should not know what she would 
have called him, had he been under the 
mulberry just now. She was — undoubtedly 
— going to marry the Professor. In which 
case she would never call the Boy any 
thing but “Little Boy Blue.’’ So she put 
it into her telegram, as a repartee to his 
audacious “dear.” Then she went out, and 
sent it off herself. It was comforting to 
have something, however small, to do for 
him. 

She came in again; dressed for the even- 
ing, and dined. She was thoroughly tired; 
and one sentence beat itself incessantly 
against the mirror of her reflection, like 


192 Under the Mulberry Tree 

a frightened bird with a broken wing: 

He is going to do a hig fly to-morrow. . . . 
He is going to do a hig fly to-morrow! Little 
Boy Blue is going to fly and break the record.^' 
She sat in the stillness of her drawing- 
room, and tried to read. But between her 
eyes and the printed page, burned in letters 
of fire: He is going to fly to-morrow'' 

She went down the garden to the chairs 
beneath the mulberry tree. It was cooler 
there; but the loneliness was too fierce an 
agony. 

She walked up and down the lawn, now 
bathed in silvery moonlight. ''He is going 
to do a hig fly to-morrow. He jolly well ' 
means to break the record." 

She passed in, and went to her bedroom. 
She lay in the darkness and tried to sleep. 
She tried in vain. What if he got into 
cross-currents? 'What if the propeller 
broke? What if the steering-gear twisted? 
She began remembering every detail he 
had told herself and Mollie; when she sat 
listening, thinking of him as Mollie’s lover. 


The Sixth Day 


193 


though all the while he had been her — 
Little Boy Blue. ... ''Oh of course then 
it is all U. P. — But there must he pioneers!'* 

At last she could bear it no longer. 
She lighted her candle, and rose. She 
went to her medicine cupboard, and did a 
thing she had never done before, in the 
whole of her healthy life. She took a 
sleeping draught. The draught was one of 
Miss Ann's; left behind at the close of a 
recent visit. She knew it contained chiefly 
bromide; harmless but effective. 

She put out the light, and lay once more 
in the darkness. 

The bromide began to act. 

The bird with the broken wing became 
less insistent. 

The absent Boy drew near, and bent over, 
kneeling beside her. 

She talked to him softly. Her voice 
sounded far away, and unlike her own. 
^‘Be careful. Little Boy Blue," she said. 
“You may jolly well — ^what an expression! 
—break the record if you like; but don’t 


13 


194 Under the Mulberry Tree 

break yourself; because, if you do, you will 
break my heart/' 

The bromide was acting strongly now. 
The bird with the broken wing had gone. 
There was a strange rhythmical throbbing 
in her ears. It was the Boy's aeroplane; 
but it had started without him. She knew 
sleep was coming; merciful oblivion. Yet 
now she was too happy to wish to sleep. 
The Boy drew nearer. 

“Oh, Boy dear, I love you so," she whis- 
pered into the throbbing darkness; “I 
love you so." 

“I know you do, dear," said the Boy. 
“It is almost unbelievable, Christobel; but 
I know you do." 

Then she put up her arms, and drew him 
to her breast. 

Thus the Boy — ^though far away — 
marched round. 

And the evening and the morning were the 
sixth day” 


AN INTERLUDE 

«As a Dream, When One 
Awaketh” 


195 



'(ill ^Vf*^. i(v ■ -t r ’ ' 


mw 


''ori/ •■ ',■: ■.' •; •;,/^)^^ 





'Tf. 


.'r Sii^ 



■ t> 



h' 1 


1 :\ 


\ ^ 



\ f 





'■‘yj.’/ ' 




j * ‘ n I - 






AN INTERLUDE 


“AS A DREAM, WHEN ONE AWAKETH 

Miss Charteris opened 
eyes, the sun was stream- 
into her room. The sense 
having slept heavily and 
unnaturally lay upon her. She had not 
heard Martha's entry; but her blinds were 
up, and the tea on the tray beside her bed 
was still fresh and hot. 

She took a cup, and the after-effects of 
the bromide seemed to leave her. 

She dressed, and went downstairs. 

On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, 
lay the Professor's letter. When she had 
poured out her coffee and buttered her 
toast, she opened and read it. 

The letter was exactly such as she , had 
always dreamed the Professor would write, 
197 



igS Under the Mulberry Tree 


if he ever came to the point of making her 
a proposal. He touched on their long 
friendship; on how much it had meant 
to them both. He said he had often hoped 
for the possibility of a closer tie, but had 
not felt justified in suggesting it, until he 
was in a position to offer her a suitable 
home and income. This was now for- 
tunately the case; therefore he hastened to 
write and plead his cause, though keenly 
consdous of how little there was in himself 
calculated to call forth in a woman the 
affection which it was his earnest hope 
and desire to win. She had trusted him 
as a friend, an intellectual guide and com- 
rade, during many years. If she could 
now bring herself to trust him in a yet 
more intimate relation, he would endeavour 
never to disappoint or fail her. 

The letter was signed: 

Yours in sincere devotion 

Kenrick Harvey,'' 

A postscript requested to be allowed to 


An Interlude 


199 


call, at the usual hour, that afternoon, for 
a reply. 

Miss Charteris wrote a brief note of 
thanks and appreciation, and gave the 
Professor leave to call at three. 

The Professor called at three. 

He knocked and rang, and fumbled long 
over the umbrella stand in the hall. He 
seemed to be taking all the umbrellas out, 
and putting them back again. 

At last he appeared at the door of 
the drawing-room, where Miss Charteris 
awaited him. He was very nervous. He 
repeated the substance of his letter, only 
rather less well expressed. He alluded to 
Miss Ann, and to the extreme happiness 
and pleasure to her of having Christobel 
as a sister. But he completely ignored, 
both in the letter and in conversation. 
Miss Ann's betrayal of Christobel's con- 
fidence. For this she was grateful to 
him. 

As soon as the Professor, having floun- 
dered through the unusual waters of ex- 


200 Under the Mulberry Tree 

pressed sentiment, stepped out on to the 
high and dry path of an actual question, 
Miss Charteris answered that question 
in the affirmative, and accepted the Pro- 
fessor’s offer. 

He rose, and held her hand for a few 
moments, looking at her with great affec- 
tion through his glasses, which did not at 
all impede the warmth of his regard; in 
fact, being powerful convex lenses, they 
magnified it. Then he kissed her rather 
awkwardly on the brow, and hurried back 
to his seat. 

A somewhat strained silence would have 
followed, had not the Professor had an 
inspiration. 

Drawing a book from his pocket, he 
looked at her as you look at a child for whom 
you have a delightful surprise in store. 

‘‘That er-matter being satisfactorily 
settled, my dear Christobel, ” he said, 
“should we not find it decidedly er- 
refreshing to spend an hour over our 
Persian translation?” 


An Interlude 


201 


Miss Charteris agreed at once; but 
while the Professor read, translated, and 
expounded, expatiating on the interest 
and beauty of various passages, her mind 
wandered. 

She found herself picturing the Boy 
under similar circumstances; how the Boy 
would have behaved during the first hour 
of engagement; what the Boy would have 
said; what the Boy would have done. 
She was not quite sure what the Boy 
would have done ; she had never experienced 
the Boy with the curb completely off. 
But she suddenly remembered: ‘‘Millions, 
or would it be billions?’' and the recol- 
lection gave her a shock of such vivid 
reaction, that she laughed aloud. 

The Professor paused, and looked up 
in surprise. Then he smiled, indulgently. 

“My dear er-Christobel, this passage is 
not intended to be humorous,” he said. 

• “I know it is not,” replied Miss Char- 
teris. “I beg your pardon. I laughed 
involuntarily. ” 


202 Under the Mulberry Tree 


The Professor resumed his reading. 

No; she was not quite sure as to all the 
Boy would have done; but she knew quite 
well what he would have said. 

And here the Boy, quite unexpectedly, 
took a First in classics; for what the Boy 
would have said would certainly have been 
Greek to the Professor. 


After this, events followed one another 
so rapidly that the whole thing became 
dream-like to Miss Charteris. She found 
herself helpless in the grip of Miss Ann's 
iron will — ^up to now, carefully shrouded 
in Shetland and lace. At last she under- 
stood why Emma’s old mother had had 
to die alone in a little cottage away in 
Northumberland; Emma, good soul, being 
too devoted to her mistress to ask fo^the 
necessary week, in order to go home and 
nurse her mother. Emma had seemed 
a broken woman, ever since; and Christobel 
understood now the impossibility of anyone 


An Interlude 


203 


ever asking Miss Ann for a thing which 
Miss Ann had made up her mind not to 
grant. 

She and the Professor now became 
puppets in Miss Ann’s delicate hands. 
Miss Ann lay upon her couch and pulled 
the wires. The Professor danced, because 
he had not the discernment to know he 
was dancing; Miss Charteris, because she 
had not the heart to resist. The Boy having 
gone out of her life, nothing seemed to 
matter. It was her duty to marry the 
Professor, and there is nothing to be gained 
by the postponement of duty. 

But it was Miss Ann who insisted on the 
wedding taking place within a week. It 
was Miss Ann who reminded them that, 
the Long Vacation having just commenced, 
the Professor could easily be away, and 
there were researches connected with his 
Encyclopedia which it was of the utmost 
importance he should immediately make 
in the museums and libraries of Brussels. 
It was Miss Ann who insisted upon a 


204 Under the Mulberry Tree 

special license being obtained, and who 
overruled Christobers desire to be married 
by her brother, the bishop. Miss Ann 
had become quite hysterical at the idea 
of the bishop being brought back from a 
tour he was making in Ireland, and Chris- 
tobel yielded the more readily, because her 
brother’s arrival would undoubtedly have 
meant Mollie’s; and Mollie’s presence, 
even if she refrained from protest and 
expostulation, would have brought such 
poignant memories of the Boy. 

So it came to pass, with a queer sense 
of the whole thing being dream-like and 
unreal, that Miss Chart eris — ^who should 
have had the most crowded and most 
popular wedding in Cambridge — ^found her- 
self standing, as a bride, beside the Professor, 
in an ill-ventilated church, at ten o’clock 
in the morning, being married by an old 
clergyman she had never seen before, 
who seemed partially deaf, and partially 
blind, and wholly inadequate to the solemn 
occasion; with Miss Ann and her faithful 


An Interlude 


205 


Emma, sniffing in a pew on one side; while 
Jenkins breathed rather heavily in a pew, 
on the other. Martha had flatly refused 
to attend; and when Miss Charteris sent 
for her to bid her good-bye, Martha had 
appeared, apparently in her worst and 
most morose temper; then had suddenly 
broken down, and, exclaiming wildly : '' ’Ow 
about Hm?'" had thrown her apron over 
her head, and left the room, sobbing. 

^^How about him? How about him?'' 

Each turn of the wheels reiterated the 
question as she drove to Shiloh to pick 
up Miss Ann; then on to the church where 
the Professor waited. 

How about him? But he had left her to 
do that which she felt to be right, and she 
was doing it. 

Nevertheless, Martha’s wild outburst 
had brought the Boy very near; and he 
seemed with her as she walked up the 
church. 

Her mind wandered during the reading 
of the exhortation. In this nightmare of a 


206 Under the Mulberry Tree 


wedding she seemed to have no really impor- 
tant part to play. The Boy would burst in, 
in a minute; and a shaft of sunlight would 
come with him. He would walk straight up 
the chiu-ch to her, saying: ''We have jolly 
well had enough of this, Christobel!'' Then 
they would all wake up, and he would 
whirl her away in a motor; and she would 
say: "Boy dear; don't exceed the speed- 
limit. " 

But the Boy did not burst in; and the 
Professor's hands, looking unusually large 
in a pair of white kid gloves, were twitching 
nervously, for an emphatic question was 
being put to him,by the old clergyman, who 
had emerged from his hiding-place behind 
the Prayer-book, as soon as the exhortation 
was over. 

The Professor said: "I will," with con- 
siderable emotion; while Miss Ann sobbed 
audibly into her lace pocket-handkerchief. 

Christobel looked at the Professor. His 
outward appearance seemed greatly im- 
proved. His beard had been trimmed; 


An Interlude 


207 


his hair — what there was of it — cut. He 
had not once looked at her since she entered 
the church and took her place at his side; 
but she knew, if he did look, his eyes would 
be kind — ^kind, with a magnified kindness, 
behind the convex lenses. The Boy had 
asked whether she loved the Professor’s 
mouth, eyes, and hair. What questions 
the amazing Boy used to ask! And she 
had answered 

But here a silence in the church recalled 
her wandering thoughts. The all-impor- 
tant question had been put to her. She 
had not heard one word of it; yet the 
church awaited her '‘I will.” 

The silence became alarming. This was 
the exact psychological moment in which 
the Boy should have dashed in to the 
rescue. But the Boy did not dash in. 

Then Christobel Charteris did a thing 
perhaps unique in the annals of brides, 
but essentially characteristic of her extreme 
honesty. 

‘‘I am sorry,” she said, in a low voice; 


2 o 8 Under the Mulberry Tree 

‘T did not hear the question. Will you 
be good enough to repeat it?** 

Miss Ann, in the pew behind, gasped 
audibly. The old clergyman peered at 
her, in astonishment, over his glasses. His 
eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. 

Then he repeated the question slowly 
and deliberately, introducing a tone of 
reproof, which made of it a menace. Miss 
Charteris listened carefully to each clause, 
and at the end she said: ‘T will.** 

Whereupon, with much fumbling, the 
Professor and the old clergyman between 
them, succeeded in finding a ring, and in 
placing it upon the third finger of her left 
hand. As they did so, her thoughts wan- 
dered again. She was back in the garden 
with the Boy. He had caught her left 
hand in both his, and kissed it; then, 
dividing the third finger from the others, 
and holding it apart with his strong brown 
ones, he had laid his lips upon it, with a 
touch of unspeakable reverence and ten- 
derness. She understood"' now, why the 


An Interlude 


209 


Boy had kissed that finger separately. She 
looked down at it. The Professor's ring 
encircled it. 

Then the old clergyman said: ''Let us 
pray " ; and, kneeling meekly upon her knees, 
Christobel Charteris prayed, with all her 
heart, that she might be a good wife to her 
old friend, the Professor. 


From the church, they drove straight to 
the station. Miss Ann’s plan for them being, 
that they should lunch in London, reach 
Folkestone in time for tea, and spend a day 
or two there, at a boarding-house kept by 
an old cronie of Miss Ann’s, before crossing 
to Boulogne, en route for Brussels. 

Christobel disliked the idea of the board- 
ing-house, extremely. She had never, in 
her life, stayed at a boarding-house; more- 
over it seemed to her that a wedding 
journey called imperatively for hotels — 
and the best of hotels. But Miss Ann had 
dismissed the question with an authoritative 


210 Under the Mulberry Tree 

wave of the hand, and a veiled insinuation 
that hotels — particularly Metropole hotels 
— ^were scarcely proper places. Dear Miss 
Slinker's boarding-house would be so safe 
and nice, and the company so congenial. 
But here the Professor had interposed, 
laying his hand gently on Christobers: 
‘'My dear Ann, we take our congenial 
company with us. ” 

This was the furthest excursion into the 
realm of sentiment, upon which the Pro- 
fessor had as yet ventured. The sober, 
middle-aged side of Miss Charteris had 
appreciated it, with a certain amount of 
grateful emotion. But the youthful soul 
of Christobel had suddenly realised how 
the Boy would slap his leg, and rock, over 
the recital of such a sentence; and, between 
the two, she had been reduced to a con- 
dition bordering on hysterics. 

They travelled from Cambridge in a 
first-class compartment, had it to them- 
selves, and fell quite naturally into the style 
of conversation which had always character- 


An Interlude 


2II 


ised their friendship; meeting each other’s 
minds, not over the happenings of a living 
present, but in a mutual appreciation of 
the great intellects of a dead and gone 
past. Before long, the Professor had 
whisked his favourite Persian poet from 
the tail-pocket of his coat, Christobel had 
provided paper and pencil, and they were 
deep in translation. 

Arrived at Liverpool Street station, they 
entered a four-wheeler, and trundled slowly 
off to Cannon Street. Christobel had ima- 
gined four-wheelers to be obsolete; but the 
Professor dismissed her suggestion of a taxi, 
as being '‘a needlessly rapid mode of pro- 
gression, indubitably fraught with per- 
petual danger,” and proceeded to hail the 
sleepy and astonished driver of a four- 
wheeled cab. 

(Oh, Boy dear, what would you have 
said to that four-wheeler— you dear re- 
cord-breaking, speed-limit-exceeding, as- 
tonishingly rapid Boy? That ancient 
four-wheeler, trundling past the Bank of 


212 Under the Mulberry Tree 

England, the Royal Exchange, the Mansion 
House, down Leadenhall Street, and round 
into Cannon Street, endlessly blocked, 
continually pulling up; then starting on, 
only to be stopped again; and your Beloved 
inside it. Boy dear, looking out of the ram- 
shackle old window, in a vain endeavour 
to see something of the London you had 
planned to show her in your own delightful 
extravagant way. Oh, Boy dear, keep out 
of this! It is not your show. This four- 
wheeler has been hailed and engaged by 
the Professor. The lady within is the 
bride of the Professor. Hands off. Boy!) 

They drew up, for a few minutes, outside 
a bookseller’s in New Broad Street, on 
the left-hand side, just after they had 
trundled into it — a delightful little place, 
crammed, lined, almost carpeted, with 
books. The Professor plunged in, upsetting 
a pile of magazines in his hasty entrance 
through the narrow doorway. Here he 
always found precisely the book he hap- 
pened to be requiring for his latest research. 


An Interlude 


213 


With an incoherent remark to the pro- 
prietor, who advanced to meet him, the 
Professor became immediately absorbed, 
in a far comer of the shop, oblivious of his 
cab, his bride, and his train. Christobel 
had followed him, and stood, a dignified, 
but somewhat lonely figure, just within the 
doorway. She had been to this shop with 
her father, during his lifetime, on several 
occasions, and had since often written for 
books. The bookseller came forward. He 
was a man possessed of the useful faculty of 
remembering faces and the names apper- 
taining to them. Also he had cultivated 
the habit of taking an intelligent interest in 
his customers. But he did not connect 
this beautiful waiting figure, with the 
absorbed back of the Professor. 

“What can I do for you to-day. Miss 
Charteris?” he inquired, with ready 
courtesy. 

Christobel started. “Nothing to-day, 
thank you, Mr. Taylor. But I am much 
obliged to you for so often supplying my 


214 Under the Mulberry Tree 

requirements by return of post. And, by 
the way, you have an excellent memory. 
It is many years since I came here last, 
with my father.’' 

“Professor Charteris was one of my best 
customers,” said the bookseller, in an un- 
dertone of deferential sympathy. “I never 
knew a finer judge of a book than he. If 
I may be allowed to say so, I deeply de- 
plored his loss. Miss Charteris.”- 

Christobel smiled, and gently unbent, 
allowing the kindly expression of apprecia- 
tion and regret to reach her with comfort in 
these moments of dream -like isolation. A 
friendly hand seemed to have been out- 
stretched across the chasm which divides 
the passionately regretted past, from the 
scarcely appreciated present. She could 
see her father’s tall scholarly figure, as he 
stood lovingly fingering a book, engaged in 
earnest conversation with Mr. Taylor, re- 
gardless of the passing of time; until she 
was obliged to lay her hand on his arm, and 
hurry him through the crowded streets. 


An Interlude 


215 


down the steep incline, to the platform 
from which the Cambridge express was on 
the point of starting. And when safely 
seated, with barely a minute to spare, he 
would turn to her, with a smile of gentle 
reproof, saying: ‘‘But, my dear child, we 
had not concluded our conversation.” And 
she would laugh and say: ‘‘But we had to 
get home tonight, Papa.” Whereupon he 
would lean back, contentedly, replying : 
“Quite right, my dear. So we had.” 

Ah, happy those whose fathers and 
mothers still walk the earth beside them. 
Youth remains, notwithstanding the pass- 
ing of years, while there is still a voice to 
say, in reproof or approbation: “My 
child.” 

But the bookseller, not yet connecting 
her with the Professor, still waited her 
pleasure; and suddenly a thought struck 
Christobel. An eager wish awoke within 
her. 

“Mr. Taylor,” she said, hurriedly; “can 
you supply me with the very newest thing 


2 i 6 Under the Mulberry Tree 

on the subject of aviation? I want to 
learn all there is to know about propellers, 
steering-gear, cross-currents, and how to 
avoid the dangers 

She stopped short. The Professor had 
found what he wanted, and was fumbling 
for his purse. 

The bookseller turned quickly to a pile 
at his elbow, took up a paper-covered book, 
and placed it in her hands. “The very 
latest,” he said. “Published yesterday. 
You will find in it all you want to know.” 
Then, as he handed the Professor his 
change, “Allow me to place it to your 
account. Miss Charteris,” he said. 

Experiencing a quite unaccountable sense 
of elation and fresh interest in life, Christo- 
bel, armed with her book on aviation, re- 
entered the four-wheeler. The Professor, 
absorbed in his own purchase, had not 
noticed her private transaction. He fol- 
lowed her into the cab, and made three 
ineffectual attempts to close the door. 
Just as the driver was slowly beginning to 


An Interlude 


217 


prepare to climb down, Mr. Taylor came 
across the crowded pavement, to their 
rescue; released the Professor's coat-tail, 
shut them in, and signed to the cabman to 
drive on. With a good deal of “gee-up" 
and whip-flourishing they re-commenced 
to trundle. Mr. Taylor was not merely a 
provider of literature; he was also a keen 
observer of life, and of human nature. As 
Christobel leaned forward to acknowledge 
his help, and to smile her farewell, his ex- 
pression seemed to say: “A four-wheeler. 
Professor Harvey, and the latest work 
on aviation! An unusual combination." 
“Very unusual," she said to herself, and 
smiled again. Then it seemed to her that 
her friend of the bookshop had said : “You 
will find what you want, on page 274." 
She knew he had not, as a matter of fact, 
mentioned any page; but the figures came 
into her mind. She opened the book, 
and glanced at page 274. It was headed: 
“Fine performances by Mr. Guy Chelsea." 
She shut it quickly. There was no room 


2 i 8 Under the Mulberry Tree 


for the actual presence of the Boy in the 
Professor’s four-wheeler. 

They lunched at a depot of the Aerated 
Bread Company, close to Cannon Street 
station. While Christobel was struggling 
with a very large plateful of cold tongue, 
she suddenly remembered that one of the 
Boy’s many plans had been to take her to 
lunch at his favourite restaurant in Picca- 
dilly; where she would be able to order 
any dish she fancied, and find it better 
served than she had ever known it before; 
or to dine at the Hotel Metropole, where 
Monsieur Delma’s perfect orchestra would 
play for her any mortal thing for which 
she chose to ask, and play it better than 
she had ever heard it played. 

These memories, and a really excellent 
cup of coffee, helped Christobel in her strug- 
gles with the round of cold tongue; and 
she looked across the little marble-topped 
table brightly at the Professor, and spoke 
with a cheerful hopefulness which surprised 
herself. 


An Interlude 


219 


But something, other than his own plate 
of cold tongue, seemed weighing on the 
Professor. He had become preoccupied 
and distrait. 

When they reached the Folkestone train, 
Christobel found out the cause of his 
preoccupation. 

'‘My dear Ann^ — I should say Christo- 
bel,” remarked the Professor hurriedly, as 
he put her into an empty compartment, and 
hesitated, in the doorway. "I am always 
accustomed at this hour to have my pipe 
and a nap. Should you object, my dear 
Ann — er, that is, Christobel, if I sought a 
smoking compartment?” 

"Oh, please do!” she exclaimed eagerly. 
The idea of two hours of freedom and soli- 
tude suddenly seemed an undreamed of 
joy. "Don’t think of me. I am quite 
happy here.” 

"I will provide you with a paper,” said 
the Professor, and hailed a passing boy. 
He laid the paper on her lap, and disap- 
peared. 


220 Under the Mulberry Tree 


The train started. 

Christobel looked out of the window as 
they slowly steamed across the bridge over 
the Thames. She loved the flow of the 
river, with its constant procession of barges, 
dredges, boats, and steamers; a silent, mov- 
ing highway, right through the heart of the 
noisy whirl of London street-traflic. They 
ran past old St. Saviour’s Church, now 
promoted to be Southwark Cathedral; out 
through the suburbs, until streets became 
villas, woods and meadows appeared, and 
the train ran through Chiselhurst — peace- 
ful English resting-place where lie entombed 
the bright Imperial hopes of France — then 
on through Sevenoaks, into the bowery 
green of the Kentish hop-gardens. 

After passing Sevenoaks, she took up the 
Professor’s paper and glanced at it. Some- 
how she had felt sure it would be the Daily 
Graphic. It was the Daily Mirror! She 
had never held a halfpenny illustrated paper 
in her hands before. No doubt it was an 
excellent paper, and met the need of an 


An Interlude 


221 


immense number of people, to whom an 
additional halfpenny a day would be a con- 
sideration. But, that the Professor, when 
providing her with one paper, should have 
chosen a halfpenny instead of a penny 
paper, seemed to hold a curious significance, 
and called up sudden swift memories of 
the Boy. He would have bought Punchy 
The GraphiCy The Illustratedy The Spectator y 
and a Morning Posty plumped them all down 
on the seat in front of her; then sat beside 
her, and talked the whole journey through, 
so that she would not have had a moment 
in which to open one of them. 

(Oh, Boy dear! Don’t look at this Daily 
Mirror. You might misjudge the good 
Professor. With your fifty thousand a 
year, how can you be expected to under- 
stand a mind which must consider ha’pence, 
even when brides and wedding journeys 
are concerned. Do keep away. Boy dear. 
This is not your wedding journey.) 

Then she opened the Daily Mirror y and 
there looked out at her, from its central 


222 Under the Mulberry Tree 


page, the merry, handsome, daring face of 
her own Little Boy Blue! 

He was seated in his flying macliine, steer- 
ing-wheel in hand, looking out from among 
many wires. His cap was on the back of 
his head; his bright eyes looked straight 
into hers; his Arm lips, parted in a smile, 
seemed to be saying: 'T jolly well mean 
to do it.” Beneath was an account of him, 
and a description of the flight he was to 
attempt on that day, across the Channel, 
circling round Boulogne Cathedral, and 
back. He was to start at two o’clock. At 
that very moment he must be in mid-air. 

Oh, Little Boy Blue! Little Boy Blue! 
You have a way of making hearts stand 
still. 

The boarding-house proved to be a place 
decidedly conducive to the taking of a 
fresh-air cure; because nobody remained 
within its four walls, if the weather could 
possibly admit of their going out. 

As soon as Christobel and the Professor 


An Interlude 


223 


had taken tea, and replied to Miss Blinker's 
many questions, they went out to walk 
on the Leas until sunset. It was a radiant 
afternoon, and the strong wind which had 
suddenly arisen, blowing in unexpected 
gusts from the sea, acted as a tonic to 
weary heart and brain. Christobel, hold- 
ing on her hat as she walked, battled her 
way beside the Professor, up a cross street, 
into the Sandgate Road. 

There they went to the telegraph office, 
and sent Miss Ann news of their safe 
arrival, and of the extreme comfort they 
felt sure of experiencing at Miss Blinker's 
delightful abode. (This was the Professor's 
wording.) 

They looked in at Parson's Library just 
to order a book Miss Ann wanted; and, on 
a little farther, just to match some crewel 
silks for a tea-cosy Miss Ann was making. 

These commissions duly executed, they 
were free to make their way to the Leas 
parade, whence they would look down 
upon the beach, and enjoy a distance view 


224 Under the Mulberry Tree 

across the Channel. They took the side 
street which brought them out upon the 
esplanade, close to the lift by which people 
continuously mounted or descended the 
steep face of the cliff. 

A considerable crowd lined the esplanade 
railing, looking over eagerly. Apparently 
there was some object of particular interest 
to be seen below. 

Christobel and the Professor advanced 
to the railing, and also looked over. 

She saw a strange thing floating in the 
sea, between the promenade pier and the 
harbour. It seemed a huge insect, with 
broken wings. Its body was a mass of 
twisted wires. Around this, a little fleet of 
rowing-boats had gathered. They looked 
black, on the blue wind-swept waters, like 
water-boatmen on a village pond. They 
darted in and out and round about the 
wreckage of the huge wings and twisted wire, 
and seemed waiting for a chance to help. 

A man stood next to Christobel and the 
Professor; a man who talked to himself. 


An Interlude 


225 


“Ah, poor chap,” he said; “poor chap! 
So nearly back! So nearly broke the 
record! Such a sport!” 

“What is that thing in the water?” 
inquired the Professor. 

The man turned and looked at him. 

“An aeroplane, ” he said, slowly, speak- 
ing with a sort of stolid deliberation. “A 
wrecked aeroplane. Caught in a cross- 
current, worse luck! Just accomplished 
one of the finest flights on record. Started 
from up here; skimmed over the Channel 
to Boulogne; circled round the cathedral — 
such a clear day; we could watch the whole 
flight with field-glasses — came gaily back 
without a stop; was making for the cliff 
again, when a cross-current caught him; 
something went wrong with the steering- 
gear; and down it goes, with a plunge, 
head first into the sea.” 

“And the — er — occupant?” inquired the 
Professor. 

“The aeronaut? Ah, he didn't fall 
clear, worse luck, or they could soon have 

IS 


226 Under the Mulberry Tree 


fished him out. He stuck to his seat and 
his wheel, and fell smash in among his 
wires. They are trying to extricate him 
now. Bad luck, poor chap! Such a 
sport.'' 

*‘Do you know his name?" asked the 
Professor, peering down at the waiting 
crowd which lined the beach. 

''Guy Chelsea," said the man. "And 
I give you my word, he was the finest, 
pluckiest young amateur we had among 
the air-men." 

Then Christobel's heart began to beat 
again, and her limbs seemed to regain 
the power to move. 

"He is mine," she said. "I must go 
to him. He is my own Little Boy Blue." 
And she began to run along the Leas toward 
the stone steps which zigzag down to the 
shore. 

She heard the Professor running after 
her. 

"Ann," he called, "Ann! Stay! This 
is— most — ^unnecessary ! ' ' 


An Interlude 


227 


She flew on. 

'‘At least take the lift!” bawled the 
Professor. 

She hurried on and reached the steps, 
pausing an instant to glance back. 

The Professor had stopped at the lift, 
and was waving to her with his umbrella. 

She could never remember running down 
those steps. In what seemed but a mo- 
ment from the time she reached them, she 
found herself stumbling painfully down 
the steep slope of shingle to the water's 
edge. 

The lift, bearing the Professor, had 
just begun to crawl down the face of the 
cliff. She could see him gesticulating 
through the glass windows. 

The crowd on the shore, chiefly com- 
posed of rough men, was thickest round 
the base of a wide stone breakwater, 
jutting out into the sea. On this break- 
water stood an empty stretcher. A coast- 
guardsman marched up and down, keeping 
the crowd off the breakwater. 


228 Under the Mulberry Tree 


Christobel reached the outskirts of the 
crowd, and could get no farther. 

'‘Please let me through,’’ she said. ‘T 
belong to him. He is mine.” 

They turned and looked at her. 

‘‘She ’s ’is mother,” said a voice. ‘‘Let 
’er through.” 

‘‘ Mother be blowed!” said another voice, 
hoarsely. ‘‘Get out! She’s ’is wife.'' 

‘‘Yes,” she cried eagerly. ‘‘Yes! Oh, 
do let me through! I am his wife.” 

Suddenly she knew it was true. The 
Boy’s great love had made her his wife. 
Had he not said: ‘‘You and I are one, 
Christobel; eternally, indissolubly one. 
You will find it out, when it is too late?” 

The crowd parted, making a way for 
her, straight to the foot of the breakwater. 

She mounted it, and walked towards 
the empty stretcher. 

The coast-guardsman confronted her. 

‘‘He is mine,” she said, quietly. ‘‘I 
have the right to be here.” 

The man saluted, in respectful silence. 


An Interlude 


229 


She stood gazing out to where the crowd 
of boats hovered about the great insect 
with broken wings. 

The sea gleamed golden in the sunset. 

One boat, larger than the rest, slowly 
detached itself from the general m^lee, 
pulling with measured stroke toward the 
breakwater. 

Something lay very still in the bow, 
covered with a sail-cloth. 

Two coast-guardsmen rowed; one steered. 

The boat came toward the breakwater, 
in a shaft of sunlight. 

Christobel turned to the man beside her. 

'‘Is there any hope?” she asked. 

“ ’Fraid not, lady. My mate just sig- 
nalled: all U.P.” 

“Ah!” she said, looking wide-eyed into 
his face. “Ah! — But there must be pio- 
neers. ” 

The coast-guardsman turned and walked 
toward the crowd. 

“She’s ’is wife, men,” he said, with a 
jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. “She ’s 


230 Under the Mulberry Tree 

4s wife; yet when I told her it was all 
U.P., she said: ‘There must be pioneers.’ ” 

The crowd of roughs doffed their caps. 

The boat drew slowly nearer. 

Then she saw the Professor, hurrying 
down the shingle, waving his umbrella. 

He must not come yet. 

She advanced to the shore end of the 
breakwater, and spoke to the crowd. 

“Please,” she said, “oh, please, if possi- 
ble, prevent that gentleman from reaching 
the breakwater. ” 

They turned, and saw the advancing 
figure of the Professor, flurried and irate. 

“ ’Ullo, Bill,” cried a voice. “She says: 
Don’t let the old bloke through.” 

They passed the word from one to the 
other. “ Don’t let the old bloke through. ” 
They closed the outer ranks, standing 
shoulder to shoulder. The Professor’s 
umbrella waved wildly on the outskirts. 

She moved along the breakwater. Yes 
that was it. “Don’t let the old bloke 
through.” She had never used such a 


An Interlude 


231 


word in her life before, but it just met 
the needs of the case. ‘'Don’t let the 
old bloke through.” 

The boat drew nearer. 

A bugle, away up on the cliff, sounded 
the call to arms. 

“Little Boy Blue, come blow me your 
horn! The cow 's in the meadow, the 
sheep, in the corn. Where is the boy 
who looks after the sheep? Ah, dear 
God! Where is the Boy? Where is the 
Boy? Where is the Boy?— He ’s under 
the sail-cloth^ — ^fast asleep. ” 

The boat drew nearer. She could hear 
the measured plash of the oars; the rhyth- 
mic rattle of the rowlocks. They ad- 
vanced, to the beat of the words in her 
brain. 

“There must — be pion — eers! Don’t let 
the old bloke through. Oh, where is the 
boy who looks after the sheep? He ’s 
under the sail-cloth, fast asleep.” 

The boat drew level with the break- 
water, grating against it. 


232 Under the Mulberry Tree 


“Under the sail-cloth, Boy dear; under 
the sail-cloth — ^fast asleep." 

Tenderly, carefully, they lifted their 
burden. As the boat rocked, and their 
feet shuffled beneath the weight, she closed 
her eyes. When she opened them once 
more, the quiet Thing under the sail- 
cloth lay upon the stretcher. Every man 
within sight stood silent and bareheaded. 

The bugle on the cliff sounded: “Lights 
out." 

The golden shaft of sunlight died from 
off the sea. 

Then she came forward, and knelt be- 
side her Boy. 

Suddenly she understood the cry of anguish 
wrung from the loving heart of a woman at 
a tomb: “Tell me where thou hast laid 
Him, and I will take Him away! "Oh, faith- 
ful heart of woman, alike through all the ages, 
ready, with superhuman effort, to prove a 
limitless love and a measureless grief I 

She knelt beside the stretcher, and lifted 
the sail-cloth. 


An Interlude 


233 


Yes, it was the Boy — ^her own Little 
Boy Blue. 

His curly hair was matted with blood and 
salt water. There was a deep gash across his 
temple, from the ear, right up into the hair. 
His eyes were closed; but his lips smiled, tri- 
umphant. ' ‘ There must be pioneers ! Every 
good life given, advances the cause. ” “Yes, 
Little Boy Blue. But has it ever struck 
you, that, if you marry, your wife will most 
probably want you to give up flying; not 
being able to bear that a man who was her 
ALL should do these things?” She lifted 
the sail-cloth quite away, and stood looking 
down upon him, so shattered, yet so beauti- 
ful, in his triumphant sleep. 

Suddenly her arm was seized from be- 
hind. She turned. 

The Professor had succeeded in pushing 
his way through the crowd, and in mount- 
ing the breakwater. His cravat was awry; 
his top-hat was on the back of his head. 
He looked at her through his glasses, in 
amazed indignation. ’ 


234 Under the Mulberry Tree 


'‘Christobel, ” he said, '‘this is no place 
for you. Come away at once. Do you 
hear? I hid you come with me at once.’^ 

The only thing she really minded was 
that his hat was on, in the presence of 
her Dead. 

She could not free her arm from the 
grip of the Professor. 

She turned and pointed to the stretcher, 
with her left hand. 

“My place is here,” she said, clearly 
and deliberately. “I have the right to 
be here. This is all a fearful nightmare, 
from which we are bound before long to 
wake. But meanwhile, I tell you plainly — 
as I ought to have told you before — this is 
the body of the man I love, “ 

At that moment, one of the crowd, 
springing on to the breakwater behind 
the Professor, struck off his hat with a 
cane. It fell into the sea. 

The Professor let go her arm, and turned 
to see who had perpetrated the outrage, and 
whether the hat could be recovered. 


An Interlude 


235 


Then she bent over the stretcher. 

‘'Boy dear/* she whispered, in tones of 
ineffable tenderness; “this is where they 
have laid you; but I will take you away.** 
She put her arms beneath the body; 
then, with an almost superhuman effort, 
lifted it, and gathered it to her. It felt 
limp and broken. The head fell heavily 
against her breast. The blood and salt- 
water soaked through her thin muslin 
blouse. But she held him, and would 
not let him go. “I will take him away,** 
she whispered; “I will take him away.** 
She knew she was losing her reason, but 
she had known that, ever since she first 
looked down from the top of the cliff, and 
saw the broken wings floating on the sea. 
Now, with her Boy in her arms, her one 
idea was to get away from the Professor; 
away from the coast-guardsmen ; away from 
the crowd. 

Turning her back upon the beach, she 
staggered along the breakwater, toward 
the open sea. 


236 Under the Mulberry Tree 


*T will take him away/' she repeated; 

will take him away." 

Then her foot slipped. She still held 
the Boy, but she felt herself falling. 

She closed her eyes. 

She never knew which she struck first, 
the stone breakwater, or the sea 


THE SEVENTH DAY 
The Stone is Rolled Away 


237 



• I 


f 



THE SEVENTH DAY 


THE STONE IS ROLLED AWAY 

Christobel recovered con- 
Dusness and opened her 
js, she found herself in bed, 
her own room, at home. 

Martha bent over her. 

The morning light entered dimly, through 
closed curtains. 

In dumb anguish of mind, she looked up 
into Martha’s grim old face. 

“Tell me where you have laid him, ” she 
said, “and I will take him away. “ 

Martha snorted. 

“I Ve laid your tea-tray on the table 
beside your bed. Miss,” she said; “and 
when you ’ave finished with it, / will take 
it away.” 

Whereupon, Martha lumbered to the 
239 




240 Under the Mulberry Tree 


large bow-window, drew back all the cur- 
tains with a vigorous clatter of brass rings> 
and let in a blaze of morning sunshine. 

Christobel lay quite still, trying to collect 
her thoughts. 

One of her pillows was clasped tightly 
in her arms. ■ 

She lifted her left hand, and looked at it. 

No ring encircled the third finger. 

'‘Martha, she called, softly. 

Martha loomed large at the side of the 
bed. 

“What is to-day?'' 

‘ ' W ednesday , Miss, ' ' replied Martha, 
too much surprised to be contemptuous. 

“Martha — ^where is Mr. Chelsea?" 

“Lord only knows," said Martha, tragi- 
cally. 

“Martha — ^is he — ^living?" 

“Living? " repeated Martha, deliberately. 
Then she smiled, her crooked smile. “Liv- 
ing don’t express it. Miss Christobel. 
Lively 's more like it, when Mr. Guy is 
concerned. And I reckon, wherever 'e is. 


241 


The Seventh Day 

'e ’s makin’ things lively somewhere for 
somebody. You don’t look quite the thing 
this morning, Miss. Sit up and take your 
tea.” 

She sat up, loosing the pillow out of her 
arms — the pillow which had been, first 
her Little Boy Blue, as she drew him to 
her in the darkness; then the dead body 
of Guy Chelsea, as she lifted it on the 
breakwater. 

She took her tea from Martha’s hand, and 
drank it quickly. She wanted Martha to go. 

It was Wednesday! Then the Boy had 
left her only the day before yesterday. 
His telegram had come last night. The 
Professor’s proposal had not yet reached 
her. 

Martha lifted the tray and departed. 

Then Christobel Charteris rose, and stood 
at her open window, in the morning sun- 
light. She looked out upon the mulberry 
tree and the long vista of soft turf; in the 
dim " distance, the postern gate in the old 
red wall — ^his paradise, and hers. 

z6 


242 Under the Mulberry Tree 

She lifted her beautiful arms above her 
head. The loose sleeves of her nightdress 
fell away, baring them to the elbows. She 
might have stood, in her noble development 
of face and form, for a splendid statue of 
hope and praise. 

'‘Ah, dear God!” she breathed, "is it 
indeed true? Is it possible? Is my Boy 
alive? And am I free — ^free to be his 
alone? Am I free to give him all he 
wants; free to be all he needs?” 

She stood long at the window motionless, 
realising the mental adjustment which had 
come to her during the strenuous hours of 
the night. 

Her dream had taught her one great 
lesson: That under no circumstances what- 
ever, can it be right for a woman to marry 
one man, while with her whole being she 
loves another. Love is Lord of all. Love 
reigns paramount. No expectations, past 
or present, based on friendship or gratitude; 
no sense of duty or obligations of any kind, 
could make a marriage right, if, in view of 


The Seventh Day 


243 


that marriage, Love had to stand by with 
broken wings. 

She felt quite sure, now, that she could 
never marry the Professor; and humbly 
she thanked God for opening her eyes to the 
wrong she had contemplated, before it was 
too late. 

But there still remained the difficult 
prospect of having to disappoint a man she 
esteemed so highly; a man who had been 
led to believe she cared for him, and had 
waited years for him; a man who, for years, 
had set his heart upon her. This was a 
heavy stone, and it lay right in the path of 
perfect bliss which she longed to tread with 
her Little Boy Blue. 

Who should roll it away? 

Could she feel free to take happiness 
with the Boy, if she had disappointed and 
crushed a deeply sensitive nature which 
trusted her ? 

She dressed, and went down to the break- 
fast-room, her soul filled, in spite of perplexi- 
ties, with a radiance of glad thanksgiving. 


244 Under the Mulberry Tree 

Martha and Jenkins came in to prayers. 
Martha had now taken to curling all her 
wisps. She appeared with many frizzled 
ringlets, kept in place by invisible pins. 

Martha always came in to prayers, as if 
she were marching at the head of a long 
row of men and maids. Jenkins followed 
meekly, placing his chair at what would 
have been the tail of Martha’s imaginary 
retinue. According to the triiunphant dig- 
nity of Martha’s entry, Jenkins placed his 
chair near or far away. Martha was in 
great form to-day. Jenkins sat almost at 
the door. If the door-bell rang during 
prayers, the first ring was tacitly ignored; 
but if it rang again, Martha signed to 
Jenkins, who tiptoed reverently out, and 
answered it. No matter how early in the 
morning’s devotions the interruption oc- 
curred, Jenkins never considered it etiquette 
to return. Miss Chart eris used to dread 
a duet alone with Martha. She always 
became too intensely conscious of herself 
and of Martha, to be uplifted as usual by 


245 


The Seventh Day 

the inspired words of Bible and Prayer- 
book. The presence of Jenkins at once 
constituted a congregation. 

On this particular morning, no inter- 
ruptions occurred. 

The portion for the day chanced to be 
the scene at the empty tomb, in the early 
dawn of that first Easter Day, as given by 
Saint Mark. 

The quiet voice vibrated with unusual 
emotion as Miss Charteris read: 

And very early in the mornings the first 
day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre 
at the rising of the sun. And they said 
among themselveSy Who shall roll us away 
the stone from the door of the sepulchre? 
And when they looked, they saw that the 
stone was rolled away: for it was very great. 

Christ obel Charteris paused. She seemed 
to see the shore at Dovercourt, and the brave 
little figure struggling to carry the heavy 
stone; and, later on, when the cannon-ball 


246 Under the Mulberry Tree 


lay safely in the castle court-yard, Little 
Boy Blue standing erect, with lifted cap, 
and shining eyes, a picture of faith tri- 
umphant. 

have prayed for thee, that thy faith 
fail not, 

How far were the happenings of this 
strange night owing to that dead mother’s 
prayers; and to the Boy’s unfailing faith, 
even through these hard days ? 

Miss Charteris could read no further. 
She closed the Bible. ‘'Let us pray,” she 
said, and turned to the Collect for the week. 

”0 God, Whose never-failing providence 
ordereth all things both in heaven and earth: 
We humbly beseech Thee to put away from 
us all hurtful things, and to give us those 
things which be profitable for us; through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.'' 


On the breakfast-table, beside her plate, 
lay the Professor’s letter. She had known 
it would be there. 


The Seventh Day 247 

She poured out her coffee, and buttered 
her toast. 

Then she opened the letter. 

'‘My dear Ann’’ 

After the nightmare through which she 
had just passed, this beginning scarcely 
surprised her. She glanced back at the 
envelope to make quite sure it was ad- 
dressed to herself; then read on. It was 
dated the evening before, from the Pro- 
fessor’s rooms in College. 

“My dear Ann: 

“I regret to have been unable to look 
in upon you this evening, on my return 
from town, and my duties will keep me from 
paying you a visit until to-morrow, in the 
late afternoon. Hence this letter. 

“Needless to say, I have been thinking 
carefully over the remarkable statement 
you saw fit to make to me, concerning the 
feelings and expectations of our young 
friend. It came to me as a genuine sur- 


248 Under the Mulberry Tree 


prise. I have always looked upon our 
friendship as purely Platonic; based entirely 
upon the intellectual enjoyment we found in 
pursuing our classical studies together. 

“I admit, I cannot bring myself to 
contemplate matrimony with much en- 
thusiasm. 

“At the same time, your feeling in the 
matter being so strong, and my sense of 
gratitude towards my late friend, a thing 
never to be forgotten; if you are quite sure, 
Ann — ^and I confess it seems to me alto- 
gether incredible — that our young friend 
entertains, toward me, feelings, which will 
mean serious disappointment to her, if I 
fair' 


■ This brought the letter to the bottom of 
the first page. 

Without reading any further. Miss Char- 
teris folded it, and replaced it in the 
envelope. 

The indignant blood had mounted to the 
roots of her soft fair hair. But already, 


The Seventh Day 249 

in her heart, sounded a song of wondering 
praise. 

And when they looked they saw that the 
stone was rolled away : for it was very great, ** 

The iron gate of the front garden swung 
open. Hurried steps flew up the path. 
Emma, poor soul, had been told to fly; and 
Emma had flown. She almost fell into 
the arms of Jenkins, as he opened the 
hall door. 

The note with which Emma had run, 
at a speed which was now causing her 
'‘such a stitch as never was,” came from 
Miss Ann, and was marked ''urgent'' 
and "immediate." 

The comers of Christobers proud mouth 
curved into a quiet smile as she took it 
from the salver. She had expected this 
note. 

“Take Emma downstairs, Jenkins,” she 
said. “Ask Martha to give her a cup of 
coffee, and an egg, if she fancies it. Tell 
Emma, I wish her to^sit down comfortably 


250 Under the Mulberry Tree 

and rest. The answer to this note will be 
ready in about half an hour; not before. 

Miss Charteris finished her coffee and 
toast; poured out a fresh cup, and took 
some marmalade. She did not hurry over 
her breakfast. 

When she had quite finished, she rose, 
and walked over to the writing-table. She 
sat down, opened her blotter, took paper 
and envelopes; found a pen, and tried 
it. 

Then she opened Miss Ann's letter, 
marked “urgent" and “immediate." 

‘ ‘ Sweetest Child ’ ' (wrote Miss Ann) : ‘ ‘ See 
what Kenrick has done! We — ^you and I — 
so understand his dear absent-minded ways. 
He wrote this letter to you last night, and, 
owing to his natural emotion and tension 
of mind, addressed it to me! Needless to 
say, I have read only the opening sentences. 
Darling Christobel, you will, I feel sure, 
overlook the very natural mistake, and not 
allow it in any way to affect your answer 


The Seventh Day 


251 


to my brother’s proposal. Remember how 
difficult it is for great minds to be accurate 
in the small details of daily life. I have 
known Kenrick to put two spoonfuls of 
mustard into a cup of coffee, stir it round, 
and drink it, quite unaware that anything 
was wrong — I have indeed! See how our 
dear Professor needs a wife! 

“ I feel quite foolishly anxious this morn- 
ing. Do send me one line of assurance that 
all is well. You cannot but be touched 
by my brother’s letter. From beginning to 
end, it breathes the faithful devotion of a 
lifetime. Do not misunderstand the natu- 
ral reticence of one wholly unaccustomed to 
the voicing of sentiment. I only wish you 
could hear all he says to me!” 

Then followed a few prayers and devout 
allusions to Providence — ^which brought a 
stem look to the face of Miss Charteris — 
and, with a whiff of effusive sentiment, Ann 
Harvey closed her epistle. 

An open letter from the Professor to 


252 Under the Mulberry Tree 

herself was enclosed; but this, Christobel 
quietly laid aside. 

She took pen and paper, and wrote at 
once the note for which Emma waited. 

'‘Dear Ann: 

“I enclose a letter from your brother 
which came, addressed to me, this morning, 
but was evidently intended for you. I 
have read only the first page, which was 
quite sufficient to make the true state of 
affairs perfectly clear to me. 

“Providence has indeed interposed, by 
means of the Professor’s absent-minded 
ways, to prevent the wrecking of three 
lives — ^mine, your brother’s, and that of the 
man I love; to whom I shall be betrothed 
before the day is over. 

“I shall not tell the Professor that I have 
seen a portion of his letter to you. I think 
we owe it to him not to do so. He has always 
been a true and honourable friend to me. 

“Yours, 


“C. C.” 


253 


The Seventh Day 

When Emma had duly departed with 
this letter and enclosure, Miss Charteris 
breathed more freely. She had been afraid 
lest, in her righteous indignation, in her con- 
sciousness of the terrible mischief so nearly 
wrought, she should write too strongly to 
Miss Ann, thus causingher unnecessary pain. 

It was quite impossible, to the fine gener- 
osity of a nature such as that of Christobel 
Charteris, really to understand the mean, 
self-centred, unscrupulous dishonesty of an 
action such as this of Miss Ann’s. From 
the calm heights whereon she walked, such 
small-minded selfishness of motive did not 
come within her field of vision. She could 
never bring herself to believe worse of Miss 
Ann than that, in some incomprehensible 
way, she had laboured under a delusion 
regarding herself and the Professor. 

Miss Ann disposed of, she turned to the 
Professor’s letter. 

It was not the letter of her dream, by any 
means; nor was it the letter she had some- 
times dreamed he would write. 


254 Under the Mulberry Tree 

It was straightforward and simple; and, 
holding the key to the situation, she could 
read between the lines a certain amount of 
dismayed surprise, which made her heartily 
sorry for her old friend. 

The Professor touched on their long 
friendship, his regard for her parents, his 
sincere admiration for herself; their unity 
of interests and congeniality of tastes; his 
sudden change of fortunes; quoted a little 
Greek, a little Sanskrit, and a little Persian ; 
then, fortified by these familiar aids to the 
emotions, offered her marriage, in valiant 
and unmistakable terms. 

ChristobeFs heart stood still as she 
realised that not one word in that letter 
would have revealed to her the true state 
of the case. Truly, under Providence, she 
had cause to bless ''the Professor's dear 
absent-minded ways." 

As she took pen and paper to reply to his 
letter, her heart felt very warm toward her 
old friend. She gave him full credit for the 
effort with which he had done what he had 


The Seventh Day 255 

been led to consider was the right thing 
toward her. 

*‘My dear Professor” (she wrote): 

^T rejoice to hear of your good fortune. 
It is well indeed when the great thinkers of 
the world are rendered independent of all 
anxious taking of thought as to what they 
shall eat, or what they shall drink, or where- 
withal they shall be clothed. I like to think 
of you, my friend, as now set completely free 
from all mundane cares; able to give your 
undivided attention to the work you love. 

‘T appreciate, more than I can say, the 
kind proposition concerning myself, which 
you make in your letter. I owe it to our 
friendship to tell you quite frankly that I 
feel, and have long felt, how great an honour 
it would be for any woman to be in a posi- 
tion so to administer your household as 
to set you completely free for your great 
intellectual pursuits. 

'‘But marriage would mean more than 
this, and our long friendship emboldens me to 


256 Under the Mulberry Tree 


say that I should grieve to see you — owing 
perhaps to pressure or advice from others — 
burden your life with family ties for which 
you surely do not yourself feel any special 
inclination. 

''And, now, my friend, I must not close 
my letter without telling you how great a 
happiness has come into my lonely life. I 
am about to marry a man whom — Miss 
Charteris paused, and looked through the 
open window to the softly moving leaves of 
the old mulberry tree. A gleam of amuse- 
ment shone in her eyes, curving her lips into 
a tender smile. The Boy seemed beside 
her, slapping his knee and rocking with 
merriment at the way she was about to 
bewilder Miss Ann and the Professor — "a 
man whom I have known and loved for over 
twenty years. 

"I am sure you will wish me joy, dear 
Professor. 

"Believe me, always, 

Gratefully and affectionately yours, 
"Christobel Charteris." 


The Seventh Day 


257 


She rang the bell, and sent the answer 
to the Professor’s letter, by Jenkins. She 
could not wait for the slow mediiim of the 
post. She could not let him remain an- 
other hour in the belief that, in order to 
save her from disappointment, he was com- 
pelled to marry Christobel Charteris. 

She stood at the breakfast-room win- 
dow, and watched Jenkins as he hurried 
down the garden with the note. Going 
by the lane, and taking a short cut across 
the fields, he would reach the Professor’s 
rooms in a quarter of an hour. Until then, 
life was somewhat intolerable. 

The proud blood mantled again over the 
face the strong sweet beauty of which the 
Boy so loved. Her letter to the Professor 
had not been easy to write. She had had to 
be true to herself, and true to him, in the 
light of what she knew to be his real feel- 
ing in the matter; bearing in mind that 
before long he would almost certainly learn 
from Miss Ann that she had replied to his 
proposal after having read his sentiments 


17 


258 Under the Mulberry Tree 


on the subject, so candidly expressed on the 
first page of his letter to his sister. 

To relieve her mind, after this intricate 
whirl of cross-correspondence, she took up 
the Daily Graphic ^ and opened it; casually 
turning the pages. 

Suddenly there looked out at her from 
the central page, the merry, handsome, 
daring face of her own Little Boy Blue. 
He was seated in his flying-machine steer- 
ing-wheel in hand, looking out from among 
many wires. His cap was on the back of 
his head, his bright eyes looked straight in- 
to hers; his firm young lips, parted in a 
smile, seemed to say: ‘T jolly well mean 
to do it!*' It was the very picture she had 
seen in the Professor's Daily Mirror, in 
her dream of the night before. Below was 
an account of the flight from Folkestone 
which he was about to attempt. 

Then she remembered, with a shock of 
realisation, that the flight across the Chan- 
nel, round Boulogne Cathedral and back, 
was to take place on that very day. His 


The Seventh Day 


259 


telegram, of the night before, had said: 
*T am going to do a big fly tomorrow. 
Wish me luck.” Ah, what if it ended as she 
had seen it end in her dream: great broken 
wings; a mass of tangled wire; and the Boy 
— her Boy — ^with matted hair, and wounded 
head, asleep beneath the sail-cloth ! 

Her heart stood still. 

With their perfect joy so near its ful- 
filment, she could not let him take the risk. 
Was there time to stop him? 

She looked at the paper. The start was 
for 2 p.M. It was now eleven o’clock. 

She remembered his last words: ‘^When 
you want me and send — why, I will come 
from the other end of the world.” 

She never quite knew how she reached 
the telegraph-office. It seemed almost as 
dreamlike as her flight from the top to the 
bottom of the Folkestone cliffs. But it 
was not a dream this time; it was desperate 
reality. 

Why do people always break the points 
of the pencils hanging from strings in the 


260 Under the Mulberry Tree 

telegraph -offices? Surely it is possible to 
write a telegram without stubbing off the 
pencil, and leaving it in that condition, for 
the next person in a hurry. 

She flew from compartment to compart- 
ment, and at last produced her own pencil, 
and wrote her telegram in the final section 
of the row, independent of official broken 
points. 

Do not fly to-day. Come to me. I want 
you. 

Christobel. 

She addressed it to the hotel from which 
he had telegraphed on the previous day; 
but added to the address: ‘Tf not there, 
send immediately to aviation sheds/’ She 
had no idea what to call the places, but 
this sounded well, and seemed an intuition, 
or an unconscious recollection of some re- 
mark of the Boy’s. 

She handed it over the counter. “ Please 
see that it goes through at once,” she said. 

The clerk knew her. ”Yes, Miss Char- 


26 i 


The Seventh Day 

teris/’ he replied. He began reading the 
message aloud, but almost immediately- 
stopped, and checked the words off silently. 
He glanced at the clock. “It should be 
there before noon. Miss Charteris,“ he 
said. 

He did not look at her, as he passed her 
the stamps. He had long thought her one 
of the finest women who stepped in and 
out of the post-office. He had never ex- 
pected to see her hands tremble. And 
fancy any woman — even she^ — being able 
to tell Guy Chelsea not to fly! He had 
a bet on, about that flight, with an en- 
thusiastic backer of Chelsea's. He was glad 
he had taken the odds against its coming 
off, before seeing this wire. But' — after all! 
It is easy enough to ask a chap not to fly; 
but 

He took up a copy of the Daily Mirror, 
and looked at the brave smiling face. “I 
jolly well mean to do it!" the young aero- 
naut seemed to be saying. The clerk 
laughed, and shook his head. “Hurry up 


262 Under the Mulberry Tree 

that wire,” he called to the operator. 
Then he jingled the loose change in his 
pockets. ‘T wonder,” he said. 


During the hours which followed, Chris- 
tobel Charteris knew suspense. 

Perhaps that strong, self-contained na- 
ture could never have fully sounded the 
depths of its own surrender, without those 
hours of uncertainty, when nothing stood 
between her and the man she loved, but the 
possibility that her telegram would fail to 
reach him; that he would carry out his 
dangerous flight; that disaster and death 
would overtake him and wrest him from 
her, and that he would die — Guy Chelsea 
would die — without ever knowing of the 
cup of bliss she was now ready, with ut- 
terly loving hand, to hold to his lips. 

Having sent her message, there was no- 
thing more she could do, and the burden of 
inaction seemed almost too great a weight 
to carry, during the hours which must elapse, 


The Seventh Day 263 

before his coming could turn uncertainty 
into assurance; restlessness, into peace. 

It did not occur to her, as a possibility, 
that Guy Chelsea would elect to fly, after 
receiving her request. She knew her 
slightest wish would be law to the Boy’s 
tender loyalty; and though he knew no- 
thing of her cause for anxiety, nor of the 
complete change of circumstances since he 
left her, not forty-eight hours before, she 
felt sure he would not fly; she felt certain 
he would come — if — if the message reached 
him in time. 

At two o’clock it came to her, with over- 
whelming certainty, that her message had 
not reached him, and that he had started 
on his flight. She seemed to see the great 
wings mounting — amounting; then skim- 
ming over the sea. She almost heard the 
hum he had so often described — the hum 
of the giant insect on which the bird-man 
flew. 

Her own Little Boy Blue was flying 
through space. Oh God, what might not 


264 Under the Mulberry Tree 

any minute be bringing ! He had said : 
“One never expects those things to happen, 
and when they do happen, it ’s over so 
quickly that there is no time for expecta- 
tion.” Was it happening now? Was it 
going to be over so quickly, that her cup of 
bliss would be dashed from her lips un- 
tasted? Was she to lose her all, because 
of a cross-current or a twisted wire? 

She was walking up and down the garden 
now, and paused beside the chair in which 
she had sat when he had said, only seven 
days ago: “It was always you, I wanted; 
not your niece. Good heavens! How can 
you have thought it was Mollie, when it 
was you — ^you — ^just only you, all the 
time?” And she, half-laughing at him, 
had asked: “Is this a proposal?” 

“My ALL,” she said. “Oh, Boy dear, 
my ALL. If I lose you, I lose my all.” 

She walked on slowly, moving to the 
repetition of those words. It seemed a 
comfort to repeat the great fact that, at 
last, he was this to her. Surely it would 


The Seventh Day 


265 


reach him, by some sort of wireless tele- 
graphy through space. Surely it would 
control cross-currents, keep propellers 
acting as they should; steering-gear from 
twisting. 

''O God, he is my all — ^he is my all!'' 


The afternoon sun began to glint through 
the trees. 

The jolly little ''what-d'-you-call-'ems" 
lifted pale anxious faces to the sky. 

Clocks all around chimed the hour of four. 

Suddenly her limbs weakened. She 
could walk no longer. 

She sank into a chair, beneath the mul- 
berry tree. 

In a few minutes Jenkins would bring out 
tea. Would Martha have arranged a tea 
such as the Boy loved, with cups for two, 
hot buttered-toast and explosive buns? 

What a boy he was, at heart — this man 
who had won her; what a gay, laughter- 
loving boy! 


266 Under the Mulberry Tree 


She lay back, very still, under the mul- 
berry tree, and lived again through each 
of the Boy’s days, from the first to the 
sixth. 

She kept her eyes closed. The sunlight, 
glinting through the mulberry leaves, fell 
in bright patches on her white gown, and 
on her soft golden hair. 

The garden was very still. All nature 
seemed waiting with the heart that waited. 

''Little Boy Blue, come blow me your 
horn!^' 

"1 shall blow it all right on the seventh 
day,” the Boy had said; ''and when I do, 
you will hear it.” 

This was the seventh day. 

Suddenly the horn of a motor tooted 
loudly in the lane. 

She rose, her hands clasped upon her 
breast, and stood waiting. 

A shaft of golden sunlight streamed down 
the garden, and seemed to focus on the 
postern gate. 


267 


The Seventh Day 

Then the gate swung open and the Boy 
came in, slamming it behind him. She 
saw him coming up the lawn toward her, 
bareheaded; the sunlight in his shining 
eyes. 

'T could n't wait for trains," he shouted. 
"I came by motor. And I jolly well ex- 
ceeded the speed-limit all the way!" 

She moved a few steps to meet him. 

''Boy dear," she said, "you always 
exceed all speed-limits. It is a way you 
have. Exceed them as much as you like, 
so long as I am with you when you do it. 
But — oh, my Little Boy Blue! — don't fly 
again ; for, if you fall and break your wings, 
indeed you will break my heart." 

In a moment she was sobbing on his 
breast, her arms flung around him. There 
was nothing broken or limp about his 
strong young body, pulsating with life. 

He put his arms about her, holding her in 
a clasp of close possessive tenderness. 

He did not yet understand what had hap- 
pened; but he knew the great gift he de- 


268 Under the Mulberry Tree 


sired had been given him. He waited for 
her to speak. 

She lifted her face to his. 

''Guy/' she said; "ah, take me, hold me, 
keep me! I am altogether your own. I 
will explain to you fully, by-and-by. The 
stone was very great; but lo, as we reached 
it, the Angel of the Lord had rolled it 
away. ... No other man has a shadow of 
claim over me. I am free to say, to the only 
man I have ever really loved: Take me; 
I am yours. Oh, Boy! I am altogether 
yours." 

He bent over her. 

The sweet proud lips were parted in utter 
surrender, and lifted to his. 

He paused — ^just for one exquisite mo- 
ment of realisation. 

She waited his kiss with closed eyes, 
so she did not see the radiance of his 
face, as he looked up to the blue sky, 
flecked with fleeting white clouds. But she 
heard the voice, which from that hour 
was to make the music of her life: 


The Seventh Day 


269 


‘‘Thank the Lord/* said Little Boy Blue. 
Then —he kissed her. 


And the evenin^and the morning were the 
seventh day'' 






Deaddified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: 



JUN fl96 

jy^EEEEa 


PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES, INC. 


^3 


1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Twp., PA 16066 
(412) 779-2111 




